Reply #44: Senior Bush diplomat 'advised Gaddafi regime to the end'

[Judi Lynn]

Senior Bush diplomat 'advised Gaddafi regime to the end'
An American businessman, who served as a senior US diplomat under George W. Bush, advised the Gaddafi regime as it struggled to cling to power in Libya, it has been claimed.
By Jon Swaine, New York
12:17AM BST 01 Sep 2011

Documents reportedly found in the ransacked headquarters of Libya's intelligence service indicate that assistance was given by David Welch, Mr Bush's assistant secretary of state for near eastern affairs from 2005 to 2008.

They also suggest Dennis Kucinich, a Left-wing US congressman, asked the Gaddafis for evidence of corruption among rebel leaders that he could use to lobby for an end to US involvement in the conflict.

Mr Welch, 57, a former ambassador to Egypt, brokered the restoration of diplomatic relations between the US and Libya in 2008. One paper said to have been discovered yesterday by a reporter for Al Jazeera purports to be a minute of a meeting between Mr Welch and two Libyan officials, Abubakr Alzleitny and Mohammed Ahmed Ismail, at the Four Seasons hotel in Cairo on August 2.

Mr Welch, now a senior executive at Bechtel, an American firm with construction contracts in Libya, reportedly advised them on "confidence building measures" to improve the regime's public standing.

More:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindi...