Libya's Muammar Kaddafi on Iraq, the war on terror and Pan Am 103
‘Now We Understand Each Other’
WEB EXCLUSIVE
By Daniel Klaidman
March 05, 2004
March 5 - The news stunned
Mideast diplomats: Late last year, Libyan leader Muammar Kaddafi abruptly announced that he had agreed to terminate his country’s weapons-of-mass-destruction program. Kaddafi's decision was the culmination of months of secret diplomacy between the United States, Britain and Libya. As part of Kaddafi's rapprochement with the West, his government accepted responsibility for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, in which 270 people died. The Libyan leader has also renounced support for terrorist organizations he had backed for decades, including the Irish Republican Army and various militant Palestinian groups.
Earlier this week, Delaware’s Sen. Joseph Biden paid a visit to Libya, where he met with Kaddafi and addressed the country's People's Congress. Biden praised Kaddafi for his recent moves, but prodded him to make more reforms and move his country toward democracy. But old habits die hard in Arab dictatorships. The "leader of the great Al-Fateh Revolution," as he is known, still clings steadfastly to the strange ideology contained in his Green Book, a blend of Nasserite socialism, Islamic law and desert folk wisdom. After meeting with Biden at his sprawling residence on the Mediterranean coast town of Sirte, Kaddafi spoke through a translator with NEWSWEEK’s Daniel Klaidman and two other U.S. reporters. Excerpts:
QUESTION: Given all the changes in Libya, do you still consider your Green Book the guide for Libyans today?
Muammar Kaddafi: I would consider [it a guide] for the whole of humanity not just Libya. The whole world one day will be made Jamahiriya [a word Kaddafi uses interchangeably with Libya that translates roughly as "gathering of the masses’’]. People everywhere now are actually marching to have equality and one day they will assume authority, they will assume power. In their march they will topple down all the governments, all the parties, all the parliaments and the parties and rulers and governments I would say that the Green Book is the guide for the emancipation for the whole humanity, not just for Libya.
The Bush administration has suggested that your decision to end your weapons program was influenced by the invasion of Iraq and the toppling of Saddam Hussein. Is this true?
We started this program a long time before the problem of Iraq and before the invasion of Iraq. We made our own assessment and analysis of the current world situation, and we have come to the conclusion that the solution is to take such a decision. We can't go forward, and we can't go ahead having this program.
As part of your internal reforms, will Islamic political organizations be permitted to operate in Libya?
I would say that there isn't any justification or reason for that. The people themselves have the authority to express themselves in the congresses--in the People's Congresses. Furthermore, we don't want to [involve] Allah our God in the affairs of things like infrastructure and sewage. This is policy. Allah our God is another matter, another thing.
You just met with two delegations of members of the U.S. Congress: a U.S. senator and a delegation from the House. How do you see the future of relations between Libya and the United States?
We are very optimistic, hopeful, that we are able to understand each other. The problem before was that we didn't have a chance--we did not sit down for dining or talking. Now we are able to understand each other.
Your government has recently accepted responsibility for the bombing of Pan Am 103. That's a legal statement and a political statement. But in your heart, do you believe that the government of Libya was responsible for this act of terror?
What was buried was buried and we don't want to dig it up. It's all in the past.
Last night in your speech you talked about Libya rejoining the Barcelona Initiative [on the development world]. Do you want also as part of this to have relations with Israel--or this is not in your plans?
About Israel, our opinion is very much stipulated in the White Book, namely the establishment of Isratine [Kaddafi's initiative to combine Israel and the Palestinian areas into a single entity]. This should let us rest and have one country, one state together.
The Bush administration has praised you for cooperating in the war on Al Qaeda. Can you give us one example of something your government has done, your intelligence agencies have done, to win a battle against Al Qaeda, lead to an arrest or foil a plot?
The terrorism or terror is the enemy of all of us, not the enemy of America. So when we fight terrorism we do that for our own selves.
