The Foreign Service Journal, September 2004

iraq.usembassy.gov . The Iraq Project and Contracting Office ( www. rebuilding-iraq.net ), fo rmerly part of the Coalition Provisional Authority and now within Embassy Baghdad, manages the $18.4 billion in aid for the rebuilding of the Iraqi infrastruc- ture. USAID ( www.usaid.gov/iraq ) has taken the lead on health and edu- cation development. The Depart- ment of Commerce ( www.export. gov/iraq ) is working to promote American exports in Iraq and encour- age Iraqi businesses. Finally, the Army Corps of Engineers ( www.hq. usace.army.mil/cepa/iraq/iraq. htm ) ha s worked hard to reconstruct Iraq’s oil sector and to restore electric- ity to the Iraqi people. — Kristofer Lofgren, Editorial Intern A New Day for Libya? For the first time in 24 years, the U.S. government will have an official diplomatic relationship with Mu’am- mar al-Qadhafi’s Libya. On June 28, Assistant Secretary for Near East Affairs William Burns opened a U.S. Liaison Office in Tripoli as an intro- ductory step toward normalizing rela- tions. The oil-rich North African dic- tatorship seems poised to play a grow- ing role in strategic equations con- cerning Africa and the Middle East. Libya’s return to the international fold has been a lengthy process that has shown the benefits of long-term diplomacy. In 1999, Libya surren- dered two suspects in the Pan Am Flight 103 terrorist bombing case, and subsequently accepted responsibility for the atrocity and finalized a com- pensation package for the victims. As a result, in September 2003, the U.N. lifted its sanctions. Qadhafi first offered to abandon Libya’s weapons programs as early as 1999, but in March 2003 intense negotiations with American and British officials began, and on Dec. 19, 2003, the deal was finalized. Qadhafi officially swore off weapons of mass destruction and agreed to thorough inspections and the surren- der of all materials related to its nuclear, chemical and missile pro- grams. In surrendering its programs, Libya became the first country in over 30 years to voluntarily give up its weapons of mass destruction without a change of regime. In April 2004 the U.S. lifted its sanctions against Libya. The State Department, however, continues to list Libya as a state sponsor of terror- ism due to “residual contacts with some of its former terrorist clients” ( www.travel.state.gov/libya ), thereby preventing U.S. exports, such as advanced oil and gas technologies, from reaching the economically hand- icapped desert autocracy. Libya sits on 36 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, worth more than $1 trillion at current world prices, though, according to the Department of Energy’s country analysis brief ( http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/ cabs/libya.html ), on ly a quarter of the country has been explored due to a lack of technical infrastructure. Libya, with Africa’s largest oil supply, would like to increase production from less than 1.5 million barrels per day to over two million barrels per day by 2010 with the help of new S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 4 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 15 C YBERNOTES T his embassy [Baghdad] is going to have a thousand people hunkered down behind sandbags. I don’t know how you conduct diplomacy in that way. — Edward L. Peck, U.S. ambassador to Iraq, 1977-80, in the Boston Globe , June 26, 2004. 50 Years Ago... Those of us whose business it is to meet our country’s external dangers, however, know how much the national security depends on positive qualities, on the dedication, the vision, the energy, the intellectual development, and the accumulated knowledge of those who compose the government. Staff it with wooden Indians and the interests of our country’s enemies will be abundantly served. — From “The Interests of the National Security,” Editorial, FSJ , September 1954.