How to Control Libya Missiles? Buy Them Up

December 22, 2011
How to Control Libya Missiles? Buy Them Up
By C. J. CHIVERS - New York Times

TRIPOLI, Libya — The United States is discussing with the Libyan interim government the creation of a program to purchase shoulder-fired, heat-seeking missiles from militia members and others who gathered them up during the war, American government officials said.

The talks are the latest step in a multinational effort to contain the risks posed by the thousands of portable antiaircraft weapons that are unaccounted for after rebel fighters overran government weapons depots during the battle against Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s forces. Western security officials worry that terrorists could use this particular type of missile, which is lightweight and relatively easy to fire, to menace civilian passenger planes.

Details remain unresolved, the officials said. But in essence the United States would provide money and technical support to Libya’s government, which would purchase the missiles, and either lock them up in government arsenals or destroy them.

“We think we have come to the point where we need some sort of special program,” one official familiar with the plans said.

The missiles, believed to command premium prices on the black market, are a limited threat to modern military warplanes but pose potentially grave dangers to civilian aircraft, which rarely are equipped with the electronic countermeasures that can thwart heat-seeking warheads.

Known as Man-Portable Air Defense Systems, or Manpads, the missiles are a class of weapon that includes the well-known Stinger. The version loose in large quantities in Libya, the SA-7, is an earlier Eastern bloc generation.

Assistant Secretary of State Andrew J. Shapiro raised the American desire to arrange a purchase program in a meeting this month with Libya’s new defense minister, according to American officials familiar with the proposal.

The United States has committed $40 million to secure Libya’s arms stockpiles, much of it to prevent the spread of Manpads. No budget has been designed for a purchase program, and the price to be paid for each missile and its components has not been determined, the official said.

If Libya agrees to a program, prices will probably be set by Libyan officials after testing the market, he added.

The official, along with others, spoke on the condition of anonymity because the program, if approved, would be classified.

Although such efforts are often called “buyback” programs, in this case even the label raises sensitivities, officials said.

After providing Stinger missiles to Afghan forces fighting the Soviets in the 1980s, the United States organized a buyback program, trying to reduce the chance that the missiles would be used against international civilian air traffic or Western military planes.

In Libya, the program would not technically be a buyback, as these weapons were not provided by the West, American officials said. They were purchased from Eastern bloc suppliers during Colonel Qaddafi’s long period of arms acquisition.

Matthew H. Schroeder, a researcher who covers proliferation of Manpads at the Federation of American Scientists, said that such purchase programs had taken missiles out of circulation in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“These programs have netted Manpads in the past, in at least quantities in the low hundreds,” he said. He emphasized that he did not know any details of the American plans for Libya, and that he could not comment on them.

The American government has estimated that Libya’s military imported 20,000 of the missiles during Colonel Qaddafi’s reign; the number now missing is a fraction of that. Precise estimates are impossible, officials say, because no one is sure how many the military still possessed at the outset of the uprising or later after months of fighting.

Some of the missiles were fired in training and in war. Others were disassembled by rebels, who used their tubes as makeshift launchers for other looted ordnance. Many of the missing missiles were looted, either by rebels or would-be profiteers. Many more were destroyed in bunkers that were hit in airstrikes.

Since the war’s end, the State Department has paid for teams of private security contractors who have been canvassing the country, examining former government arms depots and meeting with anti-Qaddafi militia commanders to try to account for and secure the remaining stock.

The United States has also sent teams to the countries bordering Libya to encourage increased inspections and vigilance for missile trafficking.

So far, the survey teams have accounted for about 5,000 missiles, the State Department said, including those destroyed or fired, held by militia groups or disabled by the teams.

Officials caution that given the large number of missiles presumed missing, and the limited ability of Libya’s interim authorities to police their borders or to control the militias, not all the missiles will be accounted for or secured.

The goal, they said, is to reduce the chances of large numbers turning up on the black market by finding and collecting as many missiles as they can, and ensure that as many others as possible are stored safely.

“We’re buying down risk,” Mr. Shapiro said in an interview last month, before the discussions for a purchase program began. During that interview, he explicitly refused to comment on any efforts to purchase the missiles. Through a spokesman, he declined to comment again this week.

Many factors have made precise accounting difficult, including the poor record-keeping of the Qaddafi military. The survey teams have not found detailed ledgers of inventory, or how many were issued to units or fired in training, where the missiles were kept or even whether the stock was rotated and inspected.

“We have found no databases, nothing,” said Nicholas A. Spignesi, a State Department official who supervised the effort in Libya in November.

The decision to seek Libya’s agreement for a missile-purchase program is a recognition that the efforts so far have had their limits.

As part of the assessment of problems in recent months, survey teams have found that significant quantities of the missiles are in the hands of the hundreds of armed militias in Libya. But the militias have shown little interest in turning the weapons in, participants said.

An official familiar with the proposal said that putting money or other forms of aid on the table in exchange for the missiles might create incentives for the militias.

The official said that the Libyan government could offer cash for missiles and missile components, or “in-kind support,” like jobs or other equipment for fighters looking to return to civilian life.

Although there have been news media reports of the more modern Russian SA-24 Manpads in Libya, there is no evidence yet to support the claims, American officials said. The SA-24s purchased by Libya were part of a vehicle-mounted system, the evidence suggests, and were not configured for shoulder firing. No SA-24 grip stocks or paperwork for grip stocks have been found.

Several people involved in the effort said there had been an internal debate about the merits of a purchase program, which could lead to many missiles’ being turned in, but may also make some groups hold out for higher prices.

“It is a delicate balance on when you do it and when you don’t do it,” one official said.

C. J. Chivers reported from Washington, and Misurata, Mizdah and Tripoli, Libya.