189 Dead Americans
Guilty Verdict Leads To Gadhafi
President Bush Must Overthrow Gadhafi and Say No to Big Oil
Washington, D.C. - The guilty verdict in the Pan Am 103 terrorism trial means that Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi gave the order to kill 270 people, including 189 Americans. As the White House noted in a statement, the decision by a Scottish court to convict a Libyan intelligence official of murder means that "The Government of Libya must take responsibility." The Libyan intelligence service is headed by Gadhafi's brother-in-law and reports to Gadhafi himself.
"The problem," noted veteran journalist Cliff Kincaid, president of the public policy group America's Survival, "is that the Clinton Administration and U.N. boss Kofi Annan made a pre-trial deal with Libya that let Gadhafi off the hook for his role in the mass murder. In the documents outlining the deal, which resulted in the turnover of the two defendants, Gadhafi received a get-out-of-jail-free card through a promise that the trial would not 'undermine' the Libyan regime. This was widely viewed as a guarantee not to charge Gadhafi or his top aides in the terrorist incident."
"Why shouldn't we undermine the Libyan regime?" asked Daniel Cohen, father of one of the murdered Americans. "It may be too late for a military response, but we should use all of our political and economic power to undermine the Libyan regime. The same group of murderous thugs who ordered the bombing are still there in Libya."
The outcome presents a problem for the new Bush Administration. The documents exchanged between Clinton, Annan and Gadhafi described how U.N. economic sanctions against Libya were to be suspended after the trial and reimposed only if all permanent Security Council members, including Russia and China, agree. This, too, lets Gadhafi off the hook, because Russia and China would never agree to the reimposition of sanctions. What's more, Big Oil companies such as Occidental Petroleum wanted the sanctions lifted so they could resume business in Libya.
Options for the Bush Administration include:
- Revoking the executive order prohibiting the assassination of foreign leaders, and then organizing a covert team to kill Gadhafi and his top aides.
- Indicting Gadhafi in the Pan Am and other cases; and urging the U.N. and various U.N.-associated NGOs to join the legal campaign against the Libyan leader.
- Urging the immediate dismissal of U.N. boss Kofi Annan, on the ground that he compromised the search for justice in the case by brokering a dirty deal letting Gadhafi off the hook.
- Putting pressure on our "allies," including Britain, for additional evidence to use against the Libyan dictator.
- Making sure that all available evidence has been produced by our own law enforcement and intelligence agencies against Gadhafi.
- A military strike against Gadhafi; support for anti-Gadhafi dissidents.
- Introduction and passage of a "Libya Liberation Act," including funding for anti-Gadhafi freedom fighters.
- Urging Congressional hearings into the deal that was brokered with Gadhafi, and the immediate dismissal of any holdover State Department employee who had a hand in it.
America's Survival is the organization that sought access under the Freedom of Information Act to these documents, which had been kept secret for more than one year. In order to evade the disclosure requirements, State had put a "classified" stamp on them. They were eventually released because the defense counsel for the two Libyans requested them in the trial. Gadhafi, of course, had them all along, and had confirmed the existence of the deal in an interview with British Sky TV.
Our 44-page report, "Getting Away with Mass Murder," on the Pan Am case, is available at www.usasurvival.org in the "Latest News" section. (30)