N-inspector calls Libyan program 'low-level'

TRIPOLI, Libya -- The chief U.N. nuclear weapons inspector, Mohamed ElBaradei, arrived here Saturday to test Libya's willingness to fully disclose its atomic arms program, which he said had not yet produced a bomb.

ElBaradei, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told reporters that Libya's program was "at a low level, a nascent stage." The Libyans did not enrich uranium, a step necessary to build a nuclear bomb, he added.

His comments appeared to run counter to recent suggestions by U.S. officials in Washington that Libya had made substantial progress toward acquiring sophisticated equipment needed to produce weapons- grade uranium. The officials had described the Libyan program as nascent but active; they added that it did not approach the scope of nuclear weapons efforts in Iran and North Korea.

Libya's foreign minister, Abdel-Rahman Shalqam, declared, "We didn't arrive at the step of weaponization." He repeated his government's commitment to "complete transparency" and to permitting short-notice inspections of its nuclear facilities by signing a separate protocol to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The Libyans have acknowledged in effect breaching the treaty through a research and development program.

The decision to abandon nuclear ambitions is a major turnaround for the government of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi. His 34-year rule has been marked by involvement in regional turmoil, support of international terrorist groups and intermittent conflict with the United States.

Libyan officials said that Gadhafi is now turning away from militarism to promote development. He has campaigned to end Libya's international isolation with a series of conciliatory steps. Key among them was the extradition of two suspects in the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jetliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, and payment of $270 million to families of the victims.

U.N. economic sanctions have been lifted but not American bans on trade with Libya, which has been listed as a supporter of terrorism by successive U.S. governments. Libya is hungry for investment in its oil industry, which supplies almost all of the country's export earnings.

Gaddafi government officials deny that the toppling of Iraqi president Saddam Hussein frightened Libya into cooperating with the IAEA. Shalqam said that conversations with the United States over the issue date back several years. Libya has had an arms program for 10 to 15 years, he said, adding that "the Libyan step is a strategic one," designed to free resources for social programs. "National security can not be maintained with such weapons," he said.

ElBaradei's visit, scheduled to conclude on Monday, commences a painstaking process. He and a team of experts will meet with the head of Libya's nuclear development program Sunday, discuss an agenda for inspections and visit a reactor and other sites. ElBaradei expects Libya to sign the added protocol by March, when he will make an initial report on his findings.

After that, a round of inspections will be held, followed by the dismantling of equipment and ongoing monitoring. Baradei has brought experts with experience in both Iraq and Iran to aid his work.

A question of trust hangs over the process. The IAEA has been inspecting Libyan facilities for 20 years under terms of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and knew nothing of Gaddafi's weapons program.

ElBaradei, who headed atomic weapons inspection teams in Iraq during the 1990s, said the extra protocol would "help us a lot" to ensure the project has ended. He also noted that the danger from a Libyan bomb was remote. The program would have had to move to an "industrial stage" of production necessary to create a weapon and the IAEA would be able to detect it, he said.

Shalqam called on all states in the region to abandon nuclear weapons, "especially the Israelis." Israel refuses to discuss its nuclear arsenal. The United States also asserts that Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons and has pressed other countries to provide neither technology nor equipment.

ElBaradei is expected to seek information on whether Libya received aid from foreign sources. Such intelligence is extremely sensitive, as it might implicate countries in spreading nuclear technology against international rules. Pakistan and Iran are among the suspects, a Western diplomat here said. Over the past decade, Iran has sold short- and medium-range missiles to Libya.

Without naming names, ElBaradei said he was looking into the issue. He said finding origins is complicated by a "black market" in nuclear technology and the possibility that suppliers may not have been aware of its final use. Shalqam refused to answer a reporter's question on whether countries that provided technology or equipment knew of Libya's arms program.

"The most important point is we did not weaponize," he repeated.

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