Gaddafi, CIA and MI6

[John Simkin]

Article from the Guardian website:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/03/secret-libyan-files-mi6-cia

British and US intelligence agencies built up close links with Muammar Gaddafi and handed over detailed information to assist his regime, according to secret files found in Libyan government offices.

The documents claim that MI6 supplied its counterparts in Libya with details on exiled opponents living in the UK, and chart how the CIA abducted several suspected militants before handing them over to Tripoli.

They also contain communications between British and Libyan security officials ahead of Tony Blair's visit in 2004, and show that British officials helped write a draft speech for Gaddafi when he was being encouraged to give up his weapons programme.

The discovery was made by reporters and members of Human Rights Watch in the private offices of Moussa Koussa, the former foreign minister and head of Libyan intelligence, who defected to Britain in February. He is now believed to be in Qatar.

According to the documents, Libya's relationship with MI6 and the CIA was especially close between 2002 and 2004, at the height of the war on terror. The papers give details of how No 10 insisted that the 2004 meeting between Blair and Gaddafi took place in his bedouin tent, with a letter from an MI6 official saying: "I don't know why the English are fascinated by tents. The plain fact is that the journalists would love it."

They also show how a statement made by Gaddafi during the time in which he pledged to give up his nuclear programme and destroy his stock of chemical and biological weapons was put together with the help of British officials. A covering letter states: "For the sake of clarity, please find attached a tidied-up version of the language we agreed on Tuesday. I wanted to ensure that you had the same script."

Other letters seem to reveal that British intelligence gave Tripoli details of a Libyan dissident who had been freed from jail in Britain. One US document stated the CIA was in a position to deliver a prisoner into the custody of Libyan authorities.

The papers, which have not been independently verified, also suggest the CIA abducted several suspected militants from 2002 to 2004 who were subsequently handed over to Tripoli. Human Rights Watch has accused the CIA of condoning torture.

"It wasn't just abducting suspected Islamic militants and handing them over to the Libyan intelligence," said Peter Bouckaert, director of Human Rights Watch's emergencies division. "The CIA also sent the questions they wanted Libyan intelligence to ask and, from the files, it's very clear they were present in some of the interrogations themselves."

Foreign secretary, William Hague, said he could not comment on security matters. Further documents found at the British ambassador's residence in Tripoli, and obtained by a Sunday newspaper, concerned the release of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi. A memo written in January 2009 by Robert Dixon, head of the North Africa team at the Foreign Office, and sent to then foreign secretary David Miliband, warned that Gaddafi's ministers said there would be "dire consequences" for the UK-Libya relationship in the event of Megrahi's death in custody.

[John Dolva]

You gotta laugh

[John Simkin]

You gotta laugh

The political opponents of Gaddafi who were living in London are not laughing. It has now become clear that as a favour to Gaddafi, MI6 provided false information on them that resulted in them being imprisoned as terrorists.

[William Kelly]

You gotta laugh

The political opponents of Gaddafi who were living in London are not laughing. It has now become clear that as a favour to Gaddafi, MI6 provided false information on them that resulted in them being imprisoned as terrorists.

Gaddafi had his henchmen assassins come to the United States to kill his opponents.

What I don't understand is how Cynthia McKinney, Wayne Madsen, John Judge, Steve Leadman? and others defend Gaddafi - saying that education was free in Libya and the trains ran on time.

While I understand their staunch anti-war status - and blame NATO for the bombing campaign, if NATO didn't stop them Gaddafi's well equipped mechanized air force and army would have crushed the revolution, Gaddafi would maintain power and the police state there would exist for another forty years.

In addition, they say that al Qaeda is behind the revolts and will hijack them, when it is clear that these are true democratic revolutions and not religious ones, and they are soaking up all the revolutionary recruits that al Qaeda had previously targeted. You want to be free and open a business or kill yourself for somebody's else cause?

They also say the CIA is behind the revolutions - which makes no sense since we know how and why the revolutions were originally sparked and how they began in each country, and the CIA were taken by surprise, and never foresaw a democratic revolutions overthrowing long standing Arab dictators who were supported by the US government and the CIA.

I think France and UK were took the lead in supporting the rebels in Libya because they were so embarrassed by their previous associations with Gaddafi.

This is also a big change in US policy from support of powerful dictators who pledged to support the US anti-al Qaeda campaign to support of the dissident revolutionaries who seek the overthrow of the regime and a change in the system of government. This is a change in US policy first advocated - as far as I can tell - by Hilary Clinton, though John McCain reluctantly joined the bandwagon after it had left even though these same records show that he offered to sell Gadhafi military weapons.

While the switch from USA support of dictators to the revolutionaries was difficult in regards to Egypt, and rather easy in Libya, the situations in Yeman and Bahrain will be the hardest, as they are still saying the revolutionaries there are al Qaeda terrorists, and the dictators have given the USA either intelligence or bases so they are indebted to them and have long standing treaties.

BK

Revolutionary Program

Edited September 4, 2011 by William Kelly

[Len Colby]

What I don't understand is how Cynthia McKinney, Wayne Madsen, John Judge, Steve Leadman? and others defend Gaddafi - saying that education was free in Libya and the trains ran on time.

Perhaps that's because, with the possible exception of Judge, they are all idiots?

[John Simkin]

I think France and UK were took the lead in supporting the rebels in Libya because they were so embarrassed by their previous associations with Gaddafi. Revolutionary Program

Although I am no supporter of David Cameron, I think he was genuinely keen to get rid of Gaddafi. However, it has also given him the opportunity to attack the previous Labour government's relationship with Gaddafi. He also compares the Libya operation with Blair's policy towards Iraq.

[John Dolva]

The French acted on an april agreement re oil.

[William Kelly]

The French acted on an april agreement re oil.

Although I didn't save it at the time and now wish I did, and I am looking for it as an exhibit for posterity,

in December, 2010, at same time the world went ignorant of Mohamid Bouazizi's actions, a French diplomat, a women,

made a few deals with the Tunisian dictator that personally benefited her, and when the revolt became transparent, led

to her demise and the rise of some new French diplomats who supported the revolution, almost in embarrassment.

Then, even after the NATO attacks that stopped the Gadahafi loyalists at Benghazi the rebels were stalemated at the oil terminals at Brega,

which were backed by forces from Sirite, Gadhafi's hometown, that is still holding out. Then the French supported a second front in the Nafusa mountains,

not far south of Tripoli. It was this second front that opened up the revolution and led to the fall of Tripoli, and it was done with the covert

support of the French special operations units.

When the USA began to withdraw their support for the NATO initiative, it was the French who picked up the slack, and then they were

quickly supported by the British, who were equally embarrassed by their earlier cooperation with Gadhafi.

If you look at the early news reports from Tunisia in December 2010 there's reports of the French female diplomat who was getting very palsey walsey with the dictator, and her actions quickly led to the sudden change in policy from support of the tyrant to backing the revolutionaries, a change that carried over to the French policy in Libya.

Check it out

Revolutionaryprogram.blogspot.com

Edited September 5, 2011 by William Kelly

[Douglas Caddy]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/09/how-mi6-family-gaddafi-jail