Congressional Quarterly - "Collins wants action on Libyan missiles"

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By Rob Margettay

Sen. Susan Collins made her pitch Monday for having U.S. forces crack down on the smuggling of portable missile launchers out of Libya, saying they could end up in the hands of terrorists.

"The United States simply must make accounting for these weapons, these dangerous weapons that can be aimed to take down a commercial aircraft," Collins, who serves as ranking Republican on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said during a floor speech. "This must be a priority in Libya and throughout the region."

The military has identified Libyan arms control as a serious security issue in the months after the fall of strongman Muammar el-Qaddafi, to the point where the Obama administration has sent envoys to the region and committed $40 million to tracking down and destroying surface-to-air missiles and other dangerous weapons. Those concerns have been fueled by a rash of reports from Libya about unsecured weapons, including an October Human Rights Watch piece describing "vast amounts of unsecured explosive weapons, including surface-to-air missiles" remaining unguarded in areas around the country. The report said that the Libyan transitional council had proven ineffective in securing such stockpiles. A recent report from the Congressional Research Service said "the proliferation of military weaponry from unsecured Libyan stockpiles - including small arms, explosives, and shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles-remains a serious concern."

Collins said she wants to see those concerns codified in legislation, introducing an amendment to the fiscal 2012 defense and military construction authorization bill (S 1867) that would declare a U.S. policy of securing shoulder-fired missiles from Libya. The amendment says such weapons present a threat to citizens of the United States and its allies, including Libya.

It would also require the office of the director of national intelligence to produce a report for Congress detailing the number of missiles the Libyan government possessed prior to its fall, the effectiveness of international counterproliferation efforts and the threat posed by the weapons. Under the amendment language, the president would be responsible for producing a strategy to counter the threat.

Collins introduced the proposal with Democrats Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire.

"Former Libyan dictator Col. Qaddafi acquired more than 18,000 of these portable missiles, one of the largest stockpiles in the world," Collins said. "And make no mistake, no one has an accurate accounting of where all these missiles have gone, where they are now. While the administration has sent teams to inspect and disable these missiles where they know that they exist, there is no comprehensive strategy in place, despite very disturbing reports of Libyan militias refusing to disarm themselves and of terrorist groups seeking these weapons."

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