Libya's "Secret Tunnels of Death"

According to a report planted in the media by U.S. intelligence, the ever nefarious Libyan leader is building 2,000 miles of tunnels, disguised as a irrigation project, designed to shelter troops and armor, allowing them to strike suddenly at Libya's neighbors.

In 1984, oil-rich Libya embarked on a gigantic irrigation project, known as the "Great Man-Made River." This pharonic undertaking was designed to tap the Saharan aquifer in far southern Libya, an enormous body of ancient, underground water. A vast system of 13-foot diameter pipes and powerful pumping stations is being built to send the water north to Libya's fertile Mediterranean coast, then west to the Tripoli region, and east around Benghazi. The total construction cost of this monumental undertaking, conducted by South Korean and European firms, is a whopping $25 billion.

But Col. Khadaffi is a genuine eccentric, and told me he was determined to make Libya independent of threats of foreign food embargos, no matter the cost. So the project went ahead, in spite of ever-tightening American trade sanctions designed to cripple Libya's economy and bring down the unloved Khadaffi, who was, until Saddam Hussein, Washington's favorite villain.

Now that the pipeline is nearing the coast, US security officials are raising a hue and cry that the Man-Made River is really a gigantic version of North Korea's tunnels under the DMZ, built to shelter troops from air attack and launch surprise attacks. Washington claims the tunnels are designed to allow Libyan forces to suddenly debouche on the borders of Egypt, Chad and Tunisia. Libya, asserted the US, had also built huge, underground storage areas to hold armor, artillery and munitions.

This system is directly linked, said Washington, to Libya's alleged underground chemical/biological weapons complex at Tarhunah, south of Tripoli. From this hollowed-out mountain, the Libyans would ship containers of poison gas and toxins to smite their enemies, safe from US air attack.

All this sounds straight out of Flash Gordon. Col. Khadaffi has become a later-day Ming the Merciless, complete with his barrels of Purple Death powder to be rained down on the United States. Washington also claims Libya has stockpiled a vast, Soviet-supplied arsenal of weapons, ready to be unleashed against Israel.

Col. Khadaffi does indulge in extreme zaniness, and was involved in a few acts of terrorism in the 1980's. Still, these recent charges seem as preposterous as the panic that gripped Washington a decade ago about teams of non-existent Libyan assassins, skulking in the White House Rose Garden.

Tiny Libya is hardly a world-class threat. Libya is so backwards it imports Egyptians to bake bread. When an elevator breaks down in Tripoli, technicians must be flown in from Europe. Claim that Libya can produce nuclear weapons, or long-ranged missiles, are nonsense.

Libya's rag-tag armed forces amount to 65,000 poorly trained men. Assertions the 35,000-man Libyan army threatens U.S. ally Egypt, which can field over 400,000 troops, are ludicrous. So are claims about Libya's "secret" arsenal. Libya has about 1,000, 1960's vintage Soviet tanks, mainly T-54/55's,70% broken down. Another 1,040 inoperative T-54's are rusting in storage. These are the Libyan "legions" Washington claims are poised for a blitzkrieg into Egypt or Israel.

Most of Libya's 420-plane air force is grounded by lack of maintenance, spare parts, and pilots. Khadaffi's little navy is sinking at its moorings. The last time Libyan troops went into action - in Chad, during the late 1980's - they were routed and sent fleeing by a handful of French Foreign Legionnaires, disguised as Chadian tribesmen.

The much ballyhooed Libyan poison gas program at Tarhunah is primitive. Gas and germs are easy to produce, but extremely difficult to use effectively. Libya has no means of delivering them. Even so, the US is still developing deep-penetrator bombs designed to destroy Tarhunah and Khadaffi's personal bunkers.

One suspects the Pentagon is again building up the threat of Libya to justify defense budgets and new weapons. Foreign villains are in short supply these days. Col. Khadaffi, who was helped into power by the CIA, remains one of our few dependable bogeymen. His attempts in recent years to be good as gold, and patch relations with the west, are rejected by Washington, which remains determined to overthrow him. Khadaffi is not to be forgiven for challenging the U.S. Mideast Raj, and getting the Arabs to raise the price of oil back in the early 1970's.