Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi is keeping his word about destroying his chemical stockpile for producing mustard gas and has no weapon to deliver a chemical payload, a U.N. watchdog group said on February 23.
Reports from Libya say fears the regime will use chemical or biological weapons are rampant among protesters facing Qadhafi's militias and supporters, and former British Foreign Secretary David Owen said the West should be concerned about that possibility.
“We know that this is a person who could unleash either chemical or biological weapons which he possibly still has,” Owen said on BBC radio. Qadhafi “is deeply unstable, and has been for 42 years.”
But the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) indicated the use of chemical weapons was unlikely.
All Libya's delivery systems, 3,300 unloaded aerial bombs, were crushed by bulldozers in 2004 when Qadhafi agreed to dismantle his weapons of mass destruction, said the OPCW, based in The Hague.
Libya destroyed nearly 13.5 metric tons (15 tons) of sulfur mustard last year, about 54 per cent of its stockpile. It received an extension to eliminate the rest by May 15, the organisation said. Nearly 40 per cent of the chemicals used to make sulfur mustard also have been destroyed since 2005, it said.
Twice-yearly inspections have found no evidence of Libya reviving the chemical weapons programme.
“So far as we know, Libya gave up the capacity to deliver chemical agents seven years ago,” OPCW spokesman Michael Luhan told The Associated Press. “And in the last year we've also seen, after some delays, substantial progress toward destroying their existing stockpile of chemical agent, which is all mustard.”
