JUST CAN'T SAY IT

Here's how the Times' perpetually glass-half-empty defense correspondent Michael R. Gordon describes the motives behind the recent Libyan cave today:

As it heads into an election year, the Bush administration has highlighted the role that American power may have played in concentrating the Libyan leader's mind. Top Libyan officials, by contrast, have pointed to economic considerations. The possibility of ending decades of punishing economic sanctions might indeed have led Colonel Qaddafi, who has ruled for 34 years and wants to stay in power, to chart a new course even if the Iraq war had not occurred. Still, it may be that the American invasion of Iraq reinforced the message that the pursuit of forbidden weapons did not strengthen his government.

So in other words, for political purposes, the administration is talking as if the actions in Iraq influenced the Libyans, but really, the sanctions finally cracked them -- and the fact that they just happened to crack just as the war in Iraq was starting? And that the deal was done within days of Saddam's final capture? Well, that may have reinforced a message that was being clearly sent by the sanctions alone. Maybe.

I'm sure the party line from the Libyans is that it was the sanctions. What else are they going to say? One of the rules of deterrence is, never admit you were deterred. But that sure isn't what the good Colonel told the Italian Prime Minister in a more private conversation. So if we're going to speculate in a straight news story, lets at least include one of the biggest quotes circulating around this story.