US NEWS_Former U.S. congressman visits Libya to urge Gadhafi to leave

photo: photo: USAF / Staff Sgt. Nadine Y. Barclay

Former U.S. congressman visits Libya to urge Gadhafi to leave
By Hadeel Al-Shalchi
The Associated Press Posted: 04/07/2011 01:00:00 AM MDT
Updated: 04/07/2011 01:57:15 AM MDT


Pennsylvania Republican Curt Weldon, shown in 2006, has visited Libya twice before. He says he told the White House about his current visit. (Matt Rourke, The Associated Press )

TRIPOLI, Libya — A former U.S. congressman invited by Moammar Gadhafi arrived Wednesday on a self-described private mission to urge the Libyan leader to step down as rebels and pro-government forces waged near-stalemate battles.

Curt Weldon, a Pennsylvania Republican who has visited Libya twice before, said he was leading a private delegation and had informed the White House and members of Congress about his trip. He was in Libya's capital as a White House envoy, Chris Stevens, was meeting rebels in their de facto capital, Benghazi, to gauge their intentions and capabilities.

Gadhafi has been widely excluded from international efforts to broker a peace plan, with rebels insisting that his four-decade rule must end. Weldon would be one of the few high-profile Westerners to meet with Gadhafi since the rebellion began in February.

Weldon, who served two decades in Congress before losing in 2006, was part of a bipartisan delegation that visited Libya in 2004 after Gadhafi agreed to abandon his nuclear program. Weldon also visited last year to study U.S. business opportunities.

"There is no question that America should play a critical role in helping the Libyans build a new government," Weldon wrote in an editorial published Tuesday in The New York Times. "Sadly, in the years since my first trip, Washington has squandered many opportunities to achieve that goal without bloodshed."

Gadhafi appealed directly Wednesday to President Barack Obama to end what Gadhafi called "an unjust war."

"You are a man who has enough courage to annul a wrong and mistaken action," Gadhafi wrote in a rambling, three-page letter to Obama obtained by The Associated Press on Wednesday. "I am sure that you are able to shoulder the responsibility for that."

The White House confirmed the letter, but top officials shrugged it off.

"I don't think there is any mystery about what is expected from Mr. Gadhafi at this time," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said, repeating U.S. and NATO demands that Gadhafi's forces pull back and cease attacks. She also renewed a demand that Gadhafi step down from power and leave the country.

Libyan rebels, aided by U.N.-authorized airstrikes intended to protect civilians from Gadhafi's forces, have maintained control of much of the eastern half of Libya since early in the uprising, while Gadhafi has clung to much of the west. Gadhafi has been putting out feelers for a cease-fire, but he refuses to step down.

Neither government forces nor the rebels have made any serious gains in recent days, and the conflict has shifted to smaller objectives on both sides, such as control of the key oil port of Brega.

Rebels have complained that NATO airstrikes come too slowly to seriously disrupt the pro-Gadhafi troops. But the French foreign minister, Alain Juppe, said the missions are becoming more complicated as Gadhafi's forces position themselves in heavily populated civilian areas.

Bloomberg News reported Wednesday that the U.S. and Italy are each considering arming Libyan opposition forces to speed the ouster of Gadhafi, according to an official involved in closed-door talks between Clinton and Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini in Washington.

Frattini told Clinton that the African Union, whose commission chairman, Jean Ping, met with Frattini in Rome on Tuesday, has promised to send a delegation to Tripoli in the coming days to try to persuade Gadhafi to leave the country, according to the official, who was not authorized to discuss the private discussions at the State Department.


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