Bush adviser defends ‘difficult’ but ‘good’ deal on Libya relations

A former national security adviser to President George W. Bush on
Sunday defended that administration’s decision to normalize relations
with Libya during Bush’s second term.

Stephen Hadley called the
move “a very difficult decision” but said it was “a good deal” because
Libyan President Moammar Gadhafi agreed to dismantle the country’s
nuclear and chemical weapons program. “All that hardware is now in the
United States,” Hadley said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,”
referring to Libya’s weapons of mass destruction.

“Think about if this megalomaniac now had chemical weapons in his possession,” Hadley said.

Hadley
acknowledged that in retrospect “it turned out to be a fool’s errand”
for the U.S. to push Gadhafi for democratic reforms. Gadhafi is now
using force to put down an uprising by anti-government rebels in Libya
and has rebuffed international calls, including from President Obama, to
relinquish power.

On the same program, a former minister of immigration under Gadhafi,
Ali Errishi, said he has “no doubt” that Gadhafi is willing to engage
in the mass killing of his people to stay in power.

“I have doubt
about that,” Ali Errishi said in response to a question from Candy
Crowley. Errishi described Gadhafi’s mindset toward the Libyan people as
“either I rule you or I kill you. So there is no middle ground.”

Errishi was the first member of Gadhafi’s cabinet to break with teh strongman and call for his ouster.

The
comments come amid reports from the ground in Libya that Gadhafi forces
and anti-government rebels are girding for a protracted conflict that
could become a civil war.

Hadley praised Obama’s statement calling for Gadhafi to leave, and
he said the U.S. could consider measures short of outright military
intervention to aid the Libyan people, including providing arms to the
rebels. He suggested the U.S. could announce that the $15 billion in
Libyan assets that it has frozen would be put in a trust for the Libyan
people and used to rebuild the country after the conflict is over.

Former U.N. ambassador Bill Richardson (D), appearing later on CNN, said
he backed an “internationally-recognized no-fly zone” and urged the
Obama administration to covertly arm the rebels in Libya. He praised the
president’s handling of the crisis and said he supported Hadley’s
suggestion that the U.S. create a trust with frozen Libyan assets.

Richardson served as U.N. ambassador in the Clinton administration
before winning two terms as governor of New Mexico and making a failed
bid for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008.