Libyan Biological Warfare
Libya acceded to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention [BWC] in 1982. But Libya has never filed confidence-building data declarations with the United Nations.
While Libya is believed to have had a biological warfare program for many years, it remains in the early research and development stages, primarily because Libya lacks an adequate scientific and technical base. The program also suffers from the difficulty Libya has acquiring needed foreign equipment and technical expertise, partly due to current UN sanctions. However, Libya is trying to develop an indigenous capability and may be able to produce laboratory quantities of agent. Given the overall limitations of the program, it is unlikely that Libya will be able to transition from laboratory work to production of militarily useful quantities of biological warfare agent until well after the turn of the century.
The US believes that Libya has continued its biological warfare program. Although its program is in the research-and-development stage, Libya may be capable of producing small quantities of biological agent. Libya's BW program has been hindered, in part, by the country's poor scientific and technological base, equipment shortages, and a lack of skilled personnel, as well as by UN sanctions in place from 1992 to 1999.
Libya's biological weapons program may be centered in the General Health Laboratories, a medical facility in the Tripoli area. It reportedly was built with Iraqi assistance, and for a time employed former South African scientists. Unconfirmed reports suggested that in 1997 about a dozen Iraqi BW experts arrived in Libya to help develop a BW complex under the guise of a medical facility called General Health Laboratories. The secret program, code named "Ibn Hayan," was said to aim to produce bombs and warheads filled with anthrax and botulinum toxin [in the 9th Century AD Jabir ibn Hayan established chemistry as an experimental science]. A number of organisations, including universities and laboratories attached to the ministries of agriculture and health, were engaged in making ostensibly innocent purchases of dual-use diagnostic and laboratory materials.
On 19 December 2003 Libya agreed to destroy all of its chemical, nuclear, and biological weapons. The surprise announcement followed nine months of secret talks between Libyan, American, and British officials. Libya agreed to abide by the BIological Weapons Convention, and to allow for immediate inspections and monitoring.
A team of American and British intelligence officers spent about two weeks Libya in October and again in December 2003. During the visits, the team of US and UK inspectors went to 10 sites related to Libya's nuclear effort, chemical stockpile and missile program [other accounts suggested that the team was taken to dozens of sites], but apparently no biological weapons facilities were visited. US and UK specialists invited to Libya found no concrete evidence of an existing biological weapons effort. The team was given access to medical or pharmacological scientists and facilities, and Libyans were questioned about equipment and research that could be applied to biological warfare, but the Libyans denied that a BW program had ever existed.
