the plot thickens

So why did Libya's Gaddafi decide that WMD were no longer worth the hassle? And is his change of heart genuine? It's too early to know the answer to the second question—but there's a lot of reporting on the first. So let's take stock.

Via Drudge comes this from London's Telegraph:

Libya's promise to surrender its weapons of mass destruction was forced by Britain and America's seizure of physical evidence of Col Muammar Gaddafi's illegal weapons programme, the Telegraph can reveal.

United States officials say that America's hand was strengthened in negotiations with Col Gaddafi after a successful operation, previously undisclosed, to intercept transport suspected of carrying banned weapons.

The operation is said to have been carried out under the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), an international, American-led scheme to halt the spread of WMD by seizing them in transit. The PSI was first mooted by President George W Bush in May but was not officially launched until September. …

At a PSI conference in Washington last week, Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defence, reminded the 16 member countries - who include France, Germany, Italy and Japan in addition to Britain and America - that the threat to global security extended beyond North Korea and Iran, the focus of recent pressure from Washington over their nuclear programmes.

“While PSI participants agree that North Korea and Iran are of particular concern, we know that our efforts cannot be confined to just any one or two countries alone,” Mr Wolfowitz said.

On Fox News Sunday yesterday, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Richard Myers said that if US military forces were involved in the PSI operation, he was not aware of it.

The WaPo spins the development as a victory for internationalism, while allowing that the impending Iraq war might have provided an impetus. (Via Hit and Run.)

Libya's stunning decision yesterday to surrender its weapons of mass destruction followed two decades of international isolation and some of the world's most punishing economic sanctions. In the end, Libyan leader Col. Moammar Gaddafi was under so much pressure that he was forced to seek an end to the economic and political isolation threatening his government — and his own survival, according to U.S. and British officials and outside experts. …

“What forced Gaddafi to act was a combination of things — U.N. sanctions after the Lockerbie bombing, his international isolation after the Soviet Union's collapse … and internal economic problems that led to domestic unrest by Islamists and forces within the military,” said Ray Takeyh, a Libya expert at the National Defense University.

Whether by coincidence or fear that Libya might be targeted, Gaddafi's envoys approached Britain on the eve of the Iraq war to discuss a deal, U.S. officials said.

“The invasion of Iraq sent a strong message to governments around the world that if the United States feels threatened by weapons of mass destruction, we are prepared to act against regimes not prepared to change their behavior,” said a senior State Department official who requested anonymity.

More from the same article, on signs of Gaddafi's intent:

Despite Libya's long history of prevarication and procrastination, Tripoli has provided so much access to facilities and so much specific data on its programs that Bush and Blair agreed they had confidence that Gaddafi was sincere.

“The Libyans were quite open. They provided access to facilities. They provided substantial documentation about their programs. And we were able to take samples and photographs and other evidence,” said a senior administration official in a White House briefing after Bush's announcement.

British Defense Minister Geoffrey Hoon lends additional credibility to the Iraq war intimidation factor. (Via the Command Post.)

In an interview Sunday with Sky News, Geoffrey Hoon said Libya's decision shows that the “policy of engagement” and dialogue favored by British Prime Minister Tony Blair can work.

But he said that policy has to be backed by the threat or use of force to be successful.

Mr. Hoon said he does not think Libya's decision can be separated from the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq last March.

Scotland's Sunday Herald looks at the broader implications:

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi took the decision to renounce all weapons of mass destruction (WMD) on Friday night, but while at first it was thought this only had implications for Libya it is now clear that his decision has scuppered a secret partnership between Libya, Iran and North Korea formed with the intention of developing an independent nuclear weapon.

New documents revealed yesterday show that the three were working on the nuclear weapons programme at a top-secret underground site near the Kufra Oasis of the Sahara in southeastern Libya. The team was made up of North Korean scientists, engineers and technicians, as well as some Iranian and Libyan nuclear scientists.

North Korea and Iran, originally dubbed by Bush as the axis of evil along with Iraq, avoided detection by the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) inspectors by each member farming out vital sections of its projects to its fellow members.

Iran, which is now in the final stages of uranium enrichment for its program, is badly hit, having counted on fitting into place key parts of its WMD project made in Libya. North Korea may also be forced to scale back the production of nuclear devices as well as counting the loss of a lucrative source of income for its Scuds and nuclear technology.

Stunning news if true, and a story in today's NYT brings Pakistan into the act as well.

A lengthy investigation of the father of Pakistan's atomic bomb, Abdul Qadeer Khan, by American and European intelligence agencies and international nuclear inspectors has forced Pakistani officials to question his aides and openly confront evidence that the country was the source of crucial technology to enrich uranium for Iran, North Korea and possibly other nations.

Until the past few weeks, Pakistani officials had denied evidence that the A. Q. Khan Research Laboratories, named for the man considered a national hero, had ever been a source of weapons technology to countries aspiring to acquire fissile material. Now they are backing away from those denials, while insisting that there has been no transfer of nuclear technology since President Pervez Musharraf took power four years ago. …

An investigation conducted by The New York Times during the past two months, in Washington, Europe and Pakistan, showed that American and European investigators are interested in what they describe as Iran's purchase of nuclear centrifuge designs from Pakistan 16 years ago, largely to force the Pakistani government to face up to a pattern of clandestine sales by its nuclear engineers and to investigate much more recent transfers.

Those include shipments in the late 1990's to facilities in North Korea that American intelligence agencies are still trying to locate, in hopes of gaining access to them.

New questions about Pakistan's role have also been raised by Libya's decision on Friday to reveal and dismantle its unconventional weapons, including centrifuges and thousands of centrifuge parts. A senior American official said this weekend that Libya had shown visiting American and British intelligence officials “a relatively sophisticated model of centrifuge,” which can be used to enrich uranium for bomb fuel. …

But it was in the mid- to late 1990's, as American sanctions tightened, that Pakistan made its biggest deal — with North Korea, American intelligence officials have said. Though Pakistan continues to deny any role, the laboratories are believed to have been the centerpiece of a barter arrangement of nuclear technology for missiles. South Korean intelligence agents discovered the transactions in 2002 and passed the information to the C.I.A. In the summer of that year, American spy satellites recorded a Pakistani C-130 loading North Korean missile parts in North Korea.

Reports of Pakistani complicity in nuclear proliferation are not new. But the Times story is absolutely damning. (Link via The Corner.)

UPDATE: Steven Den Beste unloads a well-deserved smackdown on claims that internationalism and “soft power” should be credited for Gaddafi's repentance.