Qaddafi says US regime change policy convinced him to abandon WMDs

The US-led invasion of Iraq to disarm Saddam Hussein helped motivate Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi to volunteer to give up his weapons of mass destruction.

Qaddafi tells CNN that the invasion "may" have influenced him. Former top UN weapons inspector Hans Blix agrees, saying, "Gadhafi could have been scared by what he saw happen in Iraq."

British Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon says, "We showed after Saddam Hussein failed to cooperate with the United Nations that we meant business and Libya, and I hope other countries, will draw that lesson." Other Europeans sniffed that the breakthrough was a victory for "international diplomacy," not US or British leadership.

Libya quietly approached the United Kingdom and the US last March when the Iraq war began, with Qaddafi offering to open his facilities to Western inspection and to do away with any and all components relating to WMD production. He has allowed the CIA to tour his weapons laboratories since then, offering what US officials call one of the most remarkable intelligence harvests in non-proliferation history.

Qaddafi’s admission further vindicates President Bush’s decision to destroy the Saddam Hussein regime, and is a credit to the president’s unflinching defense team led by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz.