When word of the possible fall of the dictatorship of Muammar Qadhafi began spreading across the wires, the very first thought I had was this: that’s great, but who has his reputed chemical weapons and what remains of his nuclear weapons program?
Sure enough, the good people at the Associated Press wondered the same thing and released this story yesterday.
The AP piece quotes U.S. intel and military types saying that they are worried that MQ, wherever he may be, might use the weapons stockpiles to make a last stand a la Custer, but with more firepower and more worrisome consequences. Worse yet, the 11 tons of mustard gas, 1,300 tons of precursor chemicals, the 5-900 metric tons of yellowcake uranium, an estimated 30,000 anti-aircraft rockets and other goodies could be snatched up by Libyan rebels or even al-Qaeda, which never met a chaotic situation they couldn’t take advantage of (anyone been to Waziristan?).
According to the AP piece, the chemical weapons stores remain in corroding drums at a site “southeast of Tripoli”, while the nuclear stores remain at the Tajoura nuclear reactor site located to the east. Apparently, the nuclear weapons technology and HEU are no longer in the country, having been turned over to the U.S. when Qadhafi surrendered his nuclear weapons program several years ago. However, yellowcake can still be valuable on the black market. And the Global Security Newswire quotes a post by former IAEA DDG for safeguards Olli Heinonen as saying that the LEU, radioisotopes and waste sitting at Tajoura could be used in a radiological dispersion device, or “dirty bomb”.
According to US and other sources, the yellowcake and chemical weapons caches “appear to be still under the control of what’s left of the Libyan government.” Doesn’t exactly give you the warm and fuzzies, does it?
