Bush's Libya Sham

David Ignatius shows us once again the Bush administration doesn't really fight terrorism they just play someone who does on TV. In his commentary, A Gaddafi Cover-Up he explains how Libya's Gaddafi was planning to assassinate Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia while he was negotiating with the U.S. and British diplomats. This plot has been carefully covered up by the Bush administration since it would undo their Libya election spin.

President Bush has often cited Libya's announcement last December that it would stop trying to build nuclear weapons as evidence that the invasion of Iraq has deterred other nations from terrorism. "By speaking clearly and sending messages that we mean what we say, we've affected the world in a positive way," Bush said in the first presidential debate.

"Look at Libya," Bush continued. "Libya was a threat. Libya is now peacefully dismantling its weapons programs. Libya understood that America and others will enforce doctrine, and the world is better for it."

Vice President Cheney echoed that theme in his debate with Democrat John Edwards. "One of the great byproducts, for example, of what we did in Iraq and Afghanistan is that five days after we captured Saddam Hussein, Moammar Gaddafi in Libya came forward and announced that he was going to surrender all of his nuclear materials to the United States, which he has done," Cheney said.

The administration encouraging Gaddafi?

"The administration is engaging in a cover-up here," argues G. Henry M. Schuler, a Libya expert who has been studying that country for more than 30 years. He contends that the comments by Bush and Cheney are a continuation of the confusing signals that have encouraged Libyan terrorism for decades.

It's all about the election and don't let "reality" get in the way.

The Bush administration has privately admonished Gaddafi for the terrorist plot -- even as it publicly lauds him as a poster boy for its anti-terrorism campaign. The contradiction isn't lost on members of a Libyan opposition group who complained in a June 16 letter to the State Department that the plot to kill the Saudi leader "occurred while Gadhafi was proclaiming to have abandoned his life of crime and terrorism and to have become a man of peace."

By touting Gaddafi's supposed conversion, the Bush administration has given him powerful political ammunition. "This is a new lease on life for the regime," says Ashur Shamis, a Libyan opposition journalist based in London who broke the assassination story in January. "Gaddafi interprets it as a climb-down by the U.S. and Britain in his favor," he says. "He is no longer under any pressure to make political changes at home."

Bush has packaged his reelection campaign around the claim that he is resolute and uncompromising in his struggle against terrorism. But the Saudis must wonder how serious the administration is when it lionizes a man who plotted to kill their ruler.