Word: pharma
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...chemical plant, he says he is sure it was not designed to turn out chemical weapons. "In four years, sitting with the engineers and technical people on committees, nobody has mentioned or hinted that something secret is there," he says. In fact, he argues, one Rabta building, code-named Pharma 150 and reportedly the center for poison-gas manufacture, was not even included in his original design. "I draw the site plan myself -- my hand," declares Barbouti, adding that Pharma 150 was built sometime in 1987, after he completed his work at Rabta...
Intelligence sources are more than skeptical about Barbouti's claim. They have reconnaissance photos showing that construction of Pharma 150 began at the same time as the rest of Rabta's buildings, and was "well along" by 1986, when Barbouti was still deeply involved in the project. Nor do Barbouti's protestations square with the fact that his company arranged for the supply of protective equipment for handling toxic chemicals at the plant and remained active in the project, according to one official, "well into 1988." Barbouti's case is not helped, moreover, by the fact that he shuttered...
...concerned that Libya's mercurial leader, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, was developing a chemical-weapons capability. By mid-1987 U.S. analysts were convinced that a facility at Rabta, 50 miles southwest of Tripoli, which began showing up in satellite photos in 1985, was indeed a chemical-weapons plant. Code-named "Pharma-150" by the Libyans, the plant was built under tight security conditions, with a 1,300-man force of cheap labor imported from Thailand. Foreign consultants entered the country without visas and left no hotel or other records of their stay in Libya...