[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 86 (Wednesday, June 28, 2006)]
[Senate]
[Page S6615]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                 LIBYA

  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, today the Bush administration is 
taking an action that is almost incomprehensible. Frankly, it is 
outrageous, when you think about it. The administration is removing 
Libya from the State Department's list of state sponsors of terror even 
though Muammar Qadhafi has not fulfilled his commitments to the 
American victims of Libyan terror. Even though Qadhafi is not keeping 
his promise to Americans who lost loved ones when agents of his 
government bombed Pan Am flight 103, the administration is going to 
give Libya full diplomatic privileges.
  The President is taking this action even though this Senate recently 
passed my resolution which said that diplomatic credentials should not 
be given to Libya until Qadhafi provides all of the restitution 
promised to the families of the victims of the Pan Am Flight 103 
bombing and other acts of terror supported by Libya. I know a lot of 
those families, families from New Jersey and in the area generally, who 
lost loved ones on that flight. Many of the victims were young college 
students from Syracuse University. I have a nephew who went there. He 
was to take that trip but at the last minute had to change his plans. 
He lost several very good friends.
  I have been to Lockerbie, Scotland, and know too well what happened 
that fateful day when 270 people were killed, with the airplane and 
human remains falling onto that beautiful little community, Lockerbie, 
in Scotland. I have seen the remnants, the souvenirs that the victims 
had bought on that trip that was during the Christmas period. I saw 
Mickey Mouse hats and things that college kids enjoy. Even bottles of 
wine that survived were then put in a warehouse of things that were 
collected on the ground but could not be assigned to any single family 
because they didn't have any sort of identification attached to them.
  It was a sad moment for mankind, for sanity in our world. Libya 
ultimately was convicted of providing the resources for those 
terrorists who brought that airplane down. Libya has not paid all of 
the claims that were awarded to the families of the victims; Libya has 
not paid the last installment of compensation due as a condition of 
being removed from the list of state sponsors of terror. That was the 
agreement. That was the understanding.
  No matter how many years pass, these families will never forget their 
loss, their grief; neither will anyone who knows these families, who 
knows the pain visited upon these people when they heard that their son 
or daughter was killed in the downing of that airplane.
  If Libya has indeed renounced terrorism, that is great news, as is 
the fact that Libya, which was thought to be engaged in the development 
of weapons of mass destruction, has agreed to stop that pursuit. Still, 
the Libyan government has an obligation it agreed to meet so that it 
could rejoin the community of nations, to achieve a level of acceptance 
around the world. Their past behavior cannot be excused. They murdered 
Americans and they must be held fully accountable.
  Today, the Bush administration has rejected accountability for Libya. 
Today, the administration has put other interests ahead of the 
interests of the American victims of terrorism. What are those 
interests that prevailed in the end? We will let the investigative 
journals figure that one out.
  But when leaders of our country say ``we must never forget the 
lessons'' of acts of terrorism, I think they should mean it. Libya 
should fulfill its promise, its commitment to the families of the 
victims of Pan Am 103 and not let that commitment be forgotten because 
part of it has been fulfilled but not all of it. We must not forget 
that Libya has failed to comply entirely with the basic promise to 
those families.
  We urge the President and the administration to hold fast and insist 
that Libya pay its bills. The money will never compensate these 
families for the loss of their child, brother or sister, father or 
mother--never. But at least it shows that Libya is serious about 
honoring it commitments, something that is essential before it can 
achieve anything approximating the status of nations that follow the 
rule of law. So we must insist on that.
  I yield the floor.

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