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In Love With Libya
(American Spectator, Oct. '03) - Jeffrey Gedmin Nearly everybody agrees that Libya has earned its Get Out Of Jail card. Britain agrees that Libya shows "genuine remorse," as an editorial in the London Evening Standard put it. So does Silvio Berlusconi's Italy, having already announced it would use its current presidency of the EU to lift the international embargo. Libyan remorse? To assess the quality of Libya's "remorse," listen to Saif al-Islam Qaddafi, the 31-year-old son and probable heir of the Libyan dictator. Saif al-Islam (the name means "sword of Islam") runs the Qaddafi Foundation which moves vast sums of compensation money to individuals his father deems victims of worldwide terrorism. In a recent interview in Die Welt am Sonntag, Saif al-Islam warned Germany not to help the U.S. militarily against Taliban remnants in Afghanistan. "The attacks [of Sept. 11] were against America," he said. "That's very, very far from Europe. If Germany stands by America militarily, it could itself become the target of such attacks." Meanwhile, Libya has continued to supply weapons to combatants across Africa. The CIA, in an unclassified report, has confirmed Libya's "continued interest in nuclear weapons." Other senior adminstration officials say Qaddafi is still developing chemical and biological weapons programs.