Rabtagate: The Inside Story Of German Collusion In The Libyan Chemical Warfare Program

Introduction

In late 1988, relations between the United States and Germany were seriously strained when a long-running, secret conflict over U.S. allegations tying a German company, Imhausen, to the then-nearly complete Libyan chemical warfare plant at Rabta broke into public view. After manfully denying any knowledge of German involvement in this affair, the government of Chancellor Helmut Kohl finally acceded to parliamentary demands for a report on what federal authorities knew and when they knew it.

This report, entitled A Report Concerning the Possible Involvement of Germans in the Establishment of a Chemical Weapon Facility in Libya, was submitted to the Bundestag on 15 February 1989. With quintessential teutonic thoroughness, it documents in the words of the preface:

…which and at what time agencies and members of the Federal Government were informed about the possible involvement of Germans in the production of toxic gas in Libya, what steps they took in the light of that knowledge, and what political and legal consequences they intended to draw from the available information.

 

In the aftermath of recent charges that German companies have been involved in supplying Iraq with technology associated with weapons of mass destruction and the arrest two weeks ago of seven German nationals implicated in the sale of a second chemical warfare production facility to Libya, the Center for Security Policy undertook to examine this report with care. In particular, the Center vainly sought in the detailed chronology (which spans nearly a decade and comprises the bulk of this report) evidence that confirmed the report’s central contention, namely, that:

…the Federal Government [in Bonn] exhausts all possibilities to prevent German firms or individuals from participating in or providing assistance for the manufacture of [chemical] weapons in other countries and to bring them to account for any such involvement in the past.

 

A Damning Chronology:

To the contrary, the official chronology contained in this report amounts to a damning indictment of the German government’s willingness to ignore indications of the involvement of its citizens in the transfer of dangerous technologies. What is more, it documents the tenacity of that government in resisting repeated demands for corrective action issued by allied capitals.

The following excerpted quotations(1) from the report’s chronology illustrate these alarming points:

• 22 April 1980: The German Federal Intelligence Service (BND) reports that, with the help of unnamed East and West German experts, Libya is developing a plant for the manufacture of chemical warfare agents as well as a system for using them. The BND thinks it is also conceivable that it may be a normal chemical factory. The possibility of the conscious involvement of German companies in the construction of a warfare agents plant was excluded. Distribution [i.e., German agencies apprized of this information]: BK-Amt (Federal Chancellery); AA (Federal Foreign Office); BMVg (Federal Ministry of Defence); BMI (Federal Ministry of the Interior).

   

 

• 5 July 1985: The German embassy in Moscow reports on information received from a non-Eastern source indicating that the Imhausen Company in Lahr (proprietor Dr. Hippenstiel) has concluded a contract in Hong Kong to provide supplies for a pharmaceutical project. A state-owned German company is said to be involved. The location of the project is unknown, although Libya is a suspicion.

   

 

• 22 June 1987: The BND reports in its daily briefing that according to information from an allied intelligence service, a warfare agents factory is about to be completed near Rabta with a production capacity estimated at 1 to 3 tons of sarin [a highly toxic nerve agent] per day. Distribution: BK-Amt; AA; BMVg; BMWi; BMB (Federal Ministry for Intra-German Relations); BMZ (Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation).

   

 

• 26 January 1988: The German embassy in Tripoli reports…that the Rabta military research center for the production of chemical warfare agents is likely capable of operating and involves German companies.

   

 

• 3 February 1988: The German embassy in Tripoli reports that after questioning representatives of German construction firms, investigations have shown that no German companies are involved in the construction of…(Rabta). The supply of equipment has mainly been organized via Switzerland, with German intermediaries and German companies. [Information] passed on to the BND.

   

 

• 18 May 1988: The AA receives a routine level non-paper [i.e., an informal, albeit officially authorized, government-to-government communication] from the American embassy. It expresses concern over the participation of companies from the [FRG] in the supply of chemical facilities in Libya and the reequipping of Libyan C-130 aircraft to give them midair refueling capability:

   

  • [The U.S. non-paper of this date said in part:] We understand that several firms from the FRG have provided or facilitated Libya’s procurement of equipment — such as pumps and chemical processing reactors — for a probable chemical weapons facility. Among the firms involved in this activity are Sihi GmbH and Co., and Imhausen Chemie GmbH.

     

 

 

• [N.B. The German Foreign Office does not pass this information on to the Intelligence Service or other agencies for a full week. When it does, AA requests export license check on German companies named and urges consideration of foreign trade and payments inspection.]

   

 

• 8 June 1988: BMF [responds by ordering] a foreign trade and payments inspection [on only one company, Intec.] For the time being, BMF refrains from conducting [such inspections on the other firms mentioned in the non-paper [including Imhausen] because the paper contains no concrete information on the kind of goods purported to have been exported nor on their relationship to chemical weapons production.

   

 

• 15 July 1988: BND receives information from an allied intelligence service concerning possible supplies from German companies for the construction of a poison gas production plant in Rabta. The firms named are IBI, Pen Tsao and Imhausen.

   

 

• 2 August 1988: The ZKI and BND…conclude that the ZKI should only undertake preliminary investigations into Imhausen and refrain from ordering a foreign trade and payments investigation by inspectors from the customs authority before further information has been gathered.

   

 

• 18 October 1988: The BND announces receipt of a report from an allied intelligence service [context suggests source was American] on 14 October 1988, stating that in August 1988, staff from the Imhausen Company were involved in putting the alleged warfare agents plant into operation and "possibly in the repair of damage to the production facilities, too." The BND adds that Imhausen’s involvement has also come to its attention via other channels.

   

 

• 20 October 1988: The Federal Chancellor [Helmut Kohl] is briefed for the first time on the information gathered by the intelligence services in relation to Libyan efforts to establish a [chemical] warfare agents factory.

   

 

• 11 November 1988: [The German Foreign Ministry proposes that its minister, Hans Dietrich Genscher make the following points in the course of a trip to Washington:]

   

  • U.S. evidence provided in October 1988 has been looked into, but so far nothing has been found on Germans or German firms violating the Foreign Trade and Payments Act.

   

  • There is no verified information on the activity of Germans in the Libyan chemical weapons plant. Even if this were the case, the Federal Government would have no effective lever to prevent the mere participation of Germans in such projects.

 

• 11 November 1988: [A letter to Foreign Minister Genscher from then-U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz] praises the Federal Government’s efforts to prevent German firms from exporting chemical weapons materials while recognizing the legal obstacles to stronger measures.

   

 

• 24 November 1988: BND reports to the Chancellor in response to the evidence presented by the U.S. Administration:…until the summer of 1988, the BND had no knowledge of the participation of German companies neither (sic) from its own nor from foreign intelligence sources.

   

 

• 5 December 1988: …U.S. Ambassador to Bonn [Richard Burt] hands over a paper concerning the technology center and the "Pharma 150" chemical factory in Rabta. The paper contains references to the production of mustard gas and sarin as well as to the participation of the Imhausen and IBI companies.

   

 

• 19 December 1988: The ZKI informs the BMF…that the information available is still not sufficient to warrant the institution of formal investigations [vice prosecutions] as yet.

   

 

• 12 January 1989: In Washington, a German delegation [hears reports from U.S. officials] on the storage of precursor [chemicals] in Rabta and link[ing] the supply of these products to the Imhausen Company….Apart from mentioning the names of individual Imhausen staff members, the U.S. side also names other German firms [as well as contractors and suppliers from other Western companies and East European nations].

   

 

• 13 January 1989: The public prosecutor’s office institutes formal investigative proceedings [against Imhausen].

   

Hard Questions for German Excuse-Mongers

The Center for Security Policy believes that the blatant contradictions and misrepresentations riddling this chronology beg a number of serious questions about German technology security policies past, present and future. The following is but a partial sampling:

• How can the BND’s categorical statement of 5 May 1988, to the effect that no German companies were involved at Rabta, be squared with intelligence to the contrary in its possession as of at least 3 February 1988?

 

• Why did Bonn consistently refuse until July 1988 to act on evidence available to it as early as July 1985 that warranted at least a preliminary investigation of charges of a German connection to the Rabta plant?

 

• What is the United States to make of the fact that talking points supplied to Foreign Minister Genscher for his November 1988 visit to Washington were patently false?

 

• How could the German Intelligence Service have told Chancellor Kohl on 24 November 1988 that "until the summer of 1988, the BND had no knowledge of the participation of German companies neither from its own nor from foreign intelligence sources," when it had been supplied with precisely such information since at least January 1986 and especially since January 1988?

 

• Was not the practical effect of German official conduct that the government in Bonn "ran interference" for domestic companies bent on exporting dangerous technologies to renegade nations like Libya?

 

• How, if at all, has Bonn changed its procedures in the aftermath of the Imhausen fiasco for examining and urgently acting upon allegations of wrongful technology transfers?

 

• The German government contends that recently revealed illegal transfers from German companies to Iraq were able to occur as a result of "insufficient staff" resources in its technology security apparatus. What does it say about Germany’s determination to protect dangerous dual-use technologies that this problem — which was clearly identified as a factor contributing to Bonn’s failures in the Rabta case — remains uncorrected to this day?

 

• On 22 June 1987, U.S. intelligence concerning Rabta was shared with the Federal Ministry for Inter-German Relations, the interface between Bonn and the German Democratic Republic. To what extent has Bonn made other information about sensitive technology transfers available to East German authorities? To what extent will West Germany be able to monitor — to say nothing of control — the flow of Western technology at East German borders? How does the German government propose to deal with the continuing threat posed to the West’s technical secrets by the apparently still entrenched East German security service (the Stasi)?

Conclusion and Recommendation

These questions — and the serious problems they illuminate about Germany’s technology security policies — require urgent consideration by the United States government. This is especially so at the present juncture when Washington faces insistent German demands for the relaxation or outright elimination of existing controls on militarily relevant technologies.

The Center for Security Policy believes that the record compiled by the West German government itself does not inspire great confidence in Bonn’s assurances about the responsible conduct of its exporters or the integrity of its export control regime. To the contrary, that record suggests that there exists at the highest levels of German industry and officialdom a cynical willingness to subordinate common security interests to narrow parochialism and greed. Worse yet, there is abundant evidence that the German behavior which has produced Libya’s chemical warfare plant at Rabta has been the norm — not the exception; as a result, an appalling array of potent, dual-use technologies have been supplied by Germany’s enterprises to such end-users as the Soviet military, the hard-line communist regimes formerly in absolute control of Eastern Europe and Saddam Hussein.

In light of this evidence, the Center renews its call for President Bush to utilize authority available to him under existing U.S. law to impose import sanctions against German companies judged to have violated regulations controlling exports. It also urges Congress to hold urgent hearings into German export practices and to examine with care the real risks they pose to American and Western security interests — and the additional costs imposed on U.S. defense expenditures.

Under no circumstances should the United States assent to German demands for further liberalization of the multilateral export control regime unless and until Bonn can demonstrate the adoption of a far more conscientious technology security policy and effective enforcement of existing arrangements. Such an approach should, in particular, govern the U.S. Senate’s imminent action on legislation reauthorizing the Export Administration Act (due to expire on 30 September 1990).

1. Emphasis added throughout excerpts.