The Daily Clarity

What will Obama do about Bush’s deal with Libya?

A report today from The Virginian-Pilot resonates, Obama will be called on to deal with many of the Bush Administration’s last minute foreign policy passthroughs. One of these may not seem as important as Israel or Iraq, but it is a sore point among many long time analysts, and that is Libya. The US, in Bush’s final days, appointed a US Ambassador to Libya after a 36 year lapse. In this, the US seemed to be accepting Libya back into the fold as rehabilitated which doesn’t seem quite correct given their very questionable human rights record. Just one more issue for Obama to deal with after the fateful day of his inauguration:

“ON JAN. 20, the Obama administration will inherit quite a few international allies of questionable loyalty and lucidity, including Moammar Gadhafi. Among the tasks awaiting the new president and his secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, is cleaning up a deal made by the current administration with the longtime Libyan dictator.

Five years ago Gadhafi formally renounced terrorism and declared he was abandoning his country’s pursuit of nuclear weapons. He also agreed to pay settlements to the families of the victims of terrorist attacks sponsored by his country, including the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am flight over Lockerbie, Scotland, that took 270 lives.

The Bush administration, seizing the opportunity to neutralize a chronic threat in the region, began the process of restoring full diplomatic ties with Libya and re-opening its doors for American industry – most notably oil companies.

In August, U.S. officials reached an agreement to dismiss all outstanding claims involving Gadhafi’s terrorism. In exchange, the strongman agreed to pay $1.5 billion to the families of victims of multiple attacks, including the Pan Am flight and the bombing of a Berlin disco in 1986 that killed two U.S. military personnel and injured dozens of others.

Although many families embraced the agreement as an end to their long fight for compensation, not everyone is pleased, particularly the plaintiffs in the only successful case against Libya in U.S. courts. A year ago a U.S. District judge awarded $6 billion to a group of people who lost family members in the bombing of a French plane over the Niger desert in 1989. Among the 170 killed were seven Americans, including the wife of the then-U.S. ambassador to Chad.

The family members are angry that the Bush administration’s August deal nullifies their victory, according to The Washington Post. They’ll now have to join others filing claims with the State Department for part of Gadhafi’s $1.5 billion fund.

A State Department official told The Post that claimants in the case “will be able to seek compensation for their emotional distress in the same manner as family members of other victims of terrorism.”

Given Gadhafi’s unreliability and the already-protracted negotiations involved in the settlement, it’s unlikely President-elect Obama and Clinton can persuade him to increase the compensation fund.

But Obama and Clinton should review the terms of the deal and ensure that all of the claims against Libya are expedited. After more than 20 years of struggling for justice, the families deserve prompt resolution of their claims. U.S. relations with Libya may have been officially “normalized,” but life will never return to normal for the people brutalized by Gadhafi’s reign of terror.”