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Conflicting Priorities Imperil Effort to Gather Up Gaddafi's Discarded Arms

(TIME) Vivienne Walt - Gaddafi spent billions on refurbishing a huge arsenal, making Libya a prized client for Western defense contractors. The regime's collapse has seen huge quantities of arms looted from abandoned warehouses, and smuggled across Libya's borders. Shortly after Gaddafi's death, Human Rights Watch uncovered 70 bunkers south of Sirte containing thousands of guided and unguided surface-to-air weapons, artillery and mortar rounds. Libya's interim government has done little to secure those large stockpiles since then. On Monday, British Prime Minister David Cameron said Libyan authorities had found two stores of chemical weapons, previously unknown to Western governments. The U.S. State Dept. has contracted the security company DynCorp International to help track missing surface-to-air missiles, which Washington fears could enable terror attacks on civilian aviation. Gaddafi is believed to have acquired about 20,000 Russian-made SAMs.
2011-11-18 00:00:00
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