Why did Gaddafi give up his nuclear program?
Why did Muammar Gaddafi choose to give up Libya's nuclear program? John Wolfsthal, Director of Global Risk at the Federation of American Scientists, says, "Most people believe that Gaddafi was concerned about the Bush administration's regime change strategy, that after having invaded Iraq, he was concerned that he would be next on the list. And because he really hadn't invested much in putting together the building blocks of nuclear technology...he didn't really have much of a nuclear deterrent to show for it, he was far behind where Saddam Hussein was, or North Korea was. And so he agreed to basically trade these boxes of nuclear technology, in exchange for security assurances from the United States in Great Britain that he wouldn't be the next target for regime change. And for a number of years, it actually worked."
This interview is from the FPA archives.