19 December 2003 was an important day for WMD disarmament when Tripoli announced it was formally abandoning its WMD program and throwing open its facilities for international inspection. This announcement by one of the ‘axis of evil’ countries came as a surprise to the world.

Libya has a long history of terrorism and proliferation. Gaddafi was associated with sponsoring of international terrorism since 1970’s. Fifteen years back Libya was blamed for the explosion in the PanAm flight 103 over Lockerbie. It was Washington that branded Libya as a terrorist sponsoring state in 1979, and maintained a strict embargo on the country since 1986. But today, because of the proactive policies of the Libyan government, this one time major proliferator of WMDs desires to come out of isolation and join the global disarmament movement. 

Libya is cooperating with the UN and the western powers fully on arms proliferation and crackdowns against terrorist organizations like al-Qaeda. The West understands the importance of engaging Libya, which became evident from the recent visit of the US Assistant Secretary of State, William Burns, the first high ranking US official to visit Libya in more than 30 years, and by Tony Blair, the second British Prime Minister to visit Libya after Winston Churchill in 1943. 

Libya, in a way, provides the American justification for the invasion of Iraq. Its surrender validates the logic for the use of force against Iraq by the allied powers.  Interestingly, the American intelligence inputs and CIA’s estimates, which failed in justifying the WMD threat in Iraq, proved accurate in the case of Libya. In the CIA’s estimates the country possessed chemical weapons comprising about 100 tons of mustard gas and nerve agents, as also missiles that could reach Israel and most parts of Europe.

Now Libya has dispatched its nuclear weapons-related equipment to the US as part of the disarmament deal. They have allowed the Americans to seize 55,000 pounds of equipment consisting of nuclear centrifuges and components from a uranium conversion facility and five SCUD-C, longer-range missiles, among other material. They have also disclosed the storage of 23 tons of mustard gas. Gaddafi has also announced that Libya possesses a variety of chemical precursors intended for the production of sarin and other nerve agents like soman. As a first step in chemical disarmament, they have used bulldozers to crush the casings of unfilled chemical bombs. Further, Libya has pledged to destroy its chemical weapons within three years.  It has also agreed to destroy all ballistic missiles with ranges greater than 186 miles, and payloads greater than 1,100 pounds.

The Libyan nonproliferation initiative has removed the mask from the face of ‘non-rogue’ state. Evidence has been found suggesting that the Chinese designs supplied to Pakistan in the 1980s were sold to Libya by Pakistani-led smugglers. Countries like Malaysia have come under the scanner of the Americans because of evidence indicating that they manufactured the centrifuge parts for Libya’s nuclear programme. The "father" of Pakistan's nuclear bomb, Abdul Qadeer Khan, has publicly admitted supplying nuclear technology to North Korea, Iran and Libya through the black market.

This has given rise to suspicion that Khan and his network of shadowy middlemen might have sold the weapon blueprints to other states or a complete weapon, probably ever a crude device to non-state actors like al-Qaeda.  Gaddafi’s action has indirectly put pressure on Syria also, which has already hinted at disclosing its WMD programme. Syria does not have a covert nuclear programme nor does it have any influence among the various ethnic, sectarian and ideological forces in Iraq. This leaves the regime in Syria more vulnerable to future US pressures.

The evidence uncovered in Libya makes the US more worried about countries like China. The US believes that China can cooperate with Saudi Arabia on missiles and with Pakistan on nuclear and missile technology. China is interested in the oil wealth of the Middle East and is capable of covertly proliferating. China is yet to join the US backed Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) – a plan to curtail WMD proliferation.  

The Libyan example is an unusual one in the world of arms control. The pro-Libya policies by the US and the UK are indicative of a new Anglo-American alliance forming to tackle the WMD threat. The real success of disarmament does not lie only in disarming the ‘rogue’ states but also the ‘non-rogue’ proliferating states like Pakistan and China and warmongering Israel.