State Department on U.S. relations with Qaddafi: [PAUSE] "Mixed"

Thu, 09/24/2009 - 9:45pm

This bit from today's press gaggle with the State Department's P.J. Crowley is amusing:

QUESTION: Okay. And just separately, could you just comment on the U.S. relationship with Libya now in light of President Qadhafi's visit here and the way he spoke about the U.S.?
MR. CROWLEY: Mixed.
QUESTION: That was a long pause.
QUESTION: I'm not trying to be, you know, coy --
MR. CROWLEY: Our - no, I would say - I guess I would say our relationship is a work in progress.

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The work in progress -- Oil

by Don Bacon on Thu, 09/24/2009 - 10:41pm

Libya holds close to 44 billion barrels of oil reserves, the largest in Africa. 'Nuf said.

Oh, there's more. AFRICOM. "The issue of AFRICOM came up," [Condeleezza] Rice said in a joint media appearance with Abdulrahman Muhammad Shalgam, Libya's Secretary of the General People's Committee For Foreign Liaison and International Cooperation [last year].

According to Rice, Qadhafi expressed "concerns about what the United States was doing with AFRICOM, were we looking to military bases on the African continent, were we looking to a large military presence."

Rice said she told Qadhafi "that we clearly weren't getting through about what we meant for AFRICOM; that this was to be -- to help Africans help themselves in peacekeeping, in counterterrorism work."

Yeah, right. A work in progress. Qadhafi ain't stupid. He's not even short.