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February 1985

Central Intelligence Agency, Directorate of Intelligence, 'The Libyan Nuclear Program: A Technical Perspective'

This document was made possible with support from Carnegie Corporation of New York (CCNY)

For years, U.S. intelligence agencies did not take seriously Muammar Gaddafi’s efforts to develop a Libyan nuclear capability and this report provides early evidence of the perspective that the Libyan program “did not know what it was doing.” According to the CIA, the program’s “serious deficiencies,” including “poor leadership” and lack of both “coherent planning” and trained personnel made it “highly unlikely the Libyans will achieve a nuclear weapons capability within the next 10 years.” The Libyan effort was in such a “rudimentary stage” that they were trying to acquire any technology that would be relevant to producing plutonium or enriched uranium.


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Obtained and contributed by William Burr and included in NPIHP Research Update #11

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Original Uploaded Date

2013-04-23

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Report

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Record ID

116906

Original Classification

Top Secret

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Carnegie Corporation of New York (CCNY)