WikiLeaks and Libya: When the Nuclear Deal Almost Unraveled...Because Qadhafi Couldn't Camp in New York

Last week Max Fisher reported for The Atlantic:

In November 2009, six years after the government of Libya first agreed to disarm its nuclear weapons program, Libyan nuclear workers wheeled the last of their country's highly enriched uranium out in front of the Tajoura nuclear facility, just east of Tripoli. U.S. and Russian officials overseeing Libya's disarmament began preparations to ship this final batch of weapons-grade nuclear material to Russia, where it would be treated and destroyed.
 
The plan was to load the uranium onto a massive Russian cargo plane, one of the few in the world specially equipped to fly nuclear materials. On November 20, the day before the plane was to leave for a nuclear facility in Russia, Libyan officials unexpectedly halted the shipment. Without explanation, they declared that the uranium would not be permitted to leave Libya. They left the seven five-ton casks out in the open and under light guard, vulnerable to theft by the al-Qaeda factions that still operate in the region or by any rogue government that learned of their presence.

For one month and one day, U.S. and Russian diplomats negotiated with Libya for the uranium to be released and flown out of the country.

But what prompted the mini-crisis? The WikiLeaks documents offer an answer. On 27 November, Saif al-Islam al-Qadhafi, the son of the Libyan leader Muammar al-Qadhafi, "told the US Ambassador that Libya had halted the shipment of its final HEU stockpiles because it was 'fed up" with the slow pace of bilateral engagement.... Libya had not received the compensation' it was promised in exchange for an end to its WMD programs, including cooperation in the military, security, nonproliferation, civilian-nuclear, and economic spheres.".

Read the WikiLeaks document....

The Libyan concerns included purchases of military equipment, progress on the Regional Nuclear Medicine Center, financial assistance for the programme for destruction of chemical weapons, and movement towards agreements on taxes, trade, and investment. Saif said his father "was worried about U.S. intervention in Africa".

There was, however, a personal issue. The Libyan leader had been in the US in September to address the United Nations General Assembly, but his speech had been overshadowed by a dispute over whether he could pitch a tent near the UN:

[Saif] pointed to Muammar al-Qadhafi's recent trip to New York, which in Saif's opinion had not gone well, because of the "tent and residence issues and his [father's] inability to visit ground zero [the site of the destroyed World Trade Center]." He said that all three issues had been complicated by local U.S. authorities and had humiliated the Libyan leader --- "even tourists can see ground zero  without permission, but a Head of State cannot?"

The US Ambassador did not directly address the question of the tent and the World Trade Center site, but amidst some chiding --- over Libyan bureaucracy and the hero's welcome for Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, freed from imprisonment for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing --- and some consoling words, he said:

Americans were hoping for a more forward-leaning statement by Muammar al-Qadhafi in New York but instead heard a series of remarks that were not agreeable to the American public. As a result, the relationship has been placed on a "low-burner" since August.

Despite the dramatics, the discussion had offered a way out of the uranium-on-the-runway episode: "Saif pledged to solve the HEU crisis and to allow the shipment to move forward as early as next week if the USG expressed a renewed commitment to the relationship and to deeper engagement."

After the meeting, the Embassy recommended "a phone call from the Secretary [Hillary Clinton] to [Libyan Foreign Minister] Musa Kusa with a message for Colonel Qadhafi comprising a general statement of commitment to the relationship, a commitment to work with the Libyans to move the relationship ahead, and a strong point insisting that the HEU [uranium] shipment be allowed to go forward immediately and not be held hostage to any further actions".

It is not known if the call was made but on 21 December, Libya allowed a Russian plane to remove the casks, finally ending Libya's nuclear weapons programme.