How Did Gadhafi Keep His Scud Missiles for So Long?
, Eventually settled on the Russian Iskander-E. Libyan officials may have believed that the United States was obligated to help Libya procure a replacement. They appear to have been upset to learn that the United States objected to the Iskander sale, instead suggesting shorter-range Russian and Ukrainian alternatives that Libya deemed unacceptable. Washington was also not enthusiastic about Libya’s bid to join the Missile Technology Control Regime, which Tripoli believed would ease future missile procurement.It seems the United States relented on the issue of the Iskander-E after a few months, but by then the Russian price had doubled. The Libyans were incensed — or at least acted incensed — by all this and refused to eliminate the Scud-B force until a replacement was procured, preferably the Iskander-E at the original purchase price. The September 2009 deadline came a went. A pair of cables released by Wikileaks pick up the story at this point and fill in some of the details outlined by the two articles in Arms Control Today .
The most detailed WikiLeaked cable on the Scud-B issue is an account of a February 2010 meeting between General Ahmed Azwai, the head of Libya’s Scud-B destruction program, and Gene Cretz, the U.S. Ambassador in Tripoli, entitled, “ Libya Insists Ball in U.S. Court on Scud B Alternative .” Azwai recounts the torturous negotiations over the Scud-B missiles following the 2004 trilateral agreement, ultimately arguing somewhat melodramatically that “I will not allow 12,000 Libyan soldiers to remain unarmed and vulnerable. If I give up their weapons before I have a replacement, they will turn on me.”
Obviously, they may have had other reasons for turning on him.
A second cable adds an interesting wrinkle to this story. While the U.S., UK and Libya were formally haggling over the Iskander-E issue, Saif al-Qadhafi approached the U.S. Ambassador in Tripoli in September 2009 and suggested that France might sell Libya its SCALP air-launched cruise missile. (I have discussed SCALP sales to the UAE and Saudi Arabia in a pair of previous posts .) France separately, however, told the US that selling SCALP to Libya was “too sensitive.” In the February 2010 cable, Cretz speculated that the “the proposal may have been an independent move by Saif.
Where Does Scud Live - News
The US does, on occasion, use live Scuds in missile defense tests, but wasn't willing to part with more than $800 million for a Scud force that was ” aging and suffers from maintenance problems.” Once Libya agreed to eliminate, rather than modify,
Which, sadly, is what Deley did, albeit only a bit, and certainly not entirely through his own fault. "Live TV is a high-wire act," says Rageh Omaar, former BBC "Scud Stud", now with Al Jazeera English. "There's no middle ground.
The crews had been living in a half-finished house a short distance away, most likely because they feared NATO strikes and did not want to camp right next to the Scud battery. At the house, there were more signs of a hasty departure.
“This kind of indiscriminate weapon potentially could have killed many civilians,” NATO Deputy Spokesperson Carmen Romero said in a press conference via a live feed. There were no injuries during the attack. NATO officials said that the scud missiles,
1057 GMT: Earlier I reported confirmation from NATO that pro-Kadhafi forces had fired three Scud missiles in the direction of Misrata on Monday. NATO now says that just one was fired. 1051 GMT: Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini says Kadhafi and
Jeffrey Lewis • Libya's Scud-B Force
Initially, Qadhafi only pledged to “modify” Libya’s Scud-B missiles to comply with the MTCR. According to an April 2004 article by Judy Miller, Libya “had decided to convert the missiles so that their range was less than 185 miles with a payload of less than 1,100 pounds.” Libyan and US officials, according to Miller, were discussing a monitoring arrangement to ensure that the conversion was “irreversible.” If that sounds odd to you, it certainly sounded odd to Paul Kerr who got a US official to admit that “the United States is ‘not sure’ the plan is feasible.” (Apparently, the Libyans considered reducing the fuel tanks or adding weight to the missile.)
Eventually the United States persuaded Qadhafi to just eliminate the Scud-B force. In September 2004, the US, UK and Libya signed a Trilateral “Agreement on the Disposition of Scud-B Missiles” that committed Libya to eliminate its Scud-Bs by a generous September 2009 deadline.
The US offered to take 10 Scud-B missiles off Qadhafi’s hands, according to a February 2005 Yedi’ot Aharonot article (full text in the comments), but “the Libyans seized the opportunity to demand from them to buy all the 417 missiles in their possession at the astronomic total of $834 million.” The US does, on occasion, use live Scuds in missile defense tests, but wasn’t willing to part with more than $800 million for a Scud force that was ” aging and suffers from maintenance problems .”
Once Libya agreed to eliminate, rather than modify, the Scud-B force, Libya began seeking a replacement. Qadhafi, as Alex Bollfrass reported in 2007 in Arms Control Today , eventually settled on the Russian Iskander-E. Libyan officials may have believed that the United States was obligated to help Libya procure a replacement. They appear to have been upset to learn that the United States objected to the Iskander sale, instead suggesting shorter-range Russian and Ukranian alternatives that Libya deemed unacceptable. Washington was also not enthusiastic about Libya’s bid to join the Missile Technology Control Regime, which Tripoli believed would ease future missile procurement.
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