Kadafi Calls U.S. ‘Great Liar’; Europe Allies Threatened With Reprisals

Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi, claiming victory over the United States in the Gulf of Sidra, threatened reprisals Friday against European countries that host U.S. military bases if the United States provokes another military confrontation with Libya.

Kadafi, waving his fist for emphasis, made the threat in a rambling and at times incoherent speech before a rally of about 3,000 soldiers and young Revolutionary Committee members assembled outside the military barracks in Tripoli, where the Libyan leader maintains a residence.

Afterward, the youths dragged a struggling cow with the name Reagan painted on its side into the square outside the barracks and cut its throat. They thrust their hands into the wound and raised blood-covered fists into the air as they chanted “Down, Down, U.S.A.!” and called for a jihad (holy war) against America.

Calls U.S. ‘Great Liar’

Asserting that Libya scored a triumph in its confrontation with the U.S. 6th Fleet, Kadafi called the United States a “great liar” for denying Libyan claims to have shot down three U.S. warplanes over the Gulf of Sidra earlier this week.

Vowing that Libya will “impose our sovereignty on the Gulf of Sidra with our blood,” he repeated past threats to attack U.S. military bases in Europe if U.S. forces again cross the so-called “line of death” that he has drawn across the mouth of the gulf to mark Libya’s claim to sovereignty over all of it.

This time, he also extended the threat to European countries that host U.S. bases, mentioning Italy and Spain by name.

“We warn Italy and Spain and any other country that allows American bases (on their soil) that we will attack them if the confrontation with the United States continues,” Kadafi said.

‘We Want to Be Friends’

“We want to be friends with Italy and forget the past,” he said at another point, alluding to Italy’s colonial occupation of Libya. “But now Italy is with the United States, and now Libya will fight Italy if the United States attacks us again and if Italy remains with the United States,” he said.

Kadafi did not specify what kind of attack Libya might contemplate, but Western diplomats here have speculated that the Libyan leader may order terrorist reprisals against U.S. interests in Europe in response to the latest confrontation in the Gulf of Sidra.

That confrontation was touched off when units of the 6th Fleet, on maneuvers near the Gulf of Sidra, crossed the “line of death” earlier this week to demonstrate Washington’s rejection of Kadafi’s claim. Most of the gulf lies well outside of universally recognized 12-mile territorial limits.

When Libya responded by firing surface-to-air missiles at carrier-based Navy planes, the fleet retaliated by attacking Libyan missile patrol boats and a missile-launching site on the Libyan coast.

Sharply Different Versions

Libya’s version of events from that point on differs sharply, however, from the account given by the United States and corroborated by both Western and Eastern European diplomatic sources here.

Libya claimed, and Kadafi reasserted in his speech, that Libyan missiles brought down three U.S. planes and that U.S. retaliatory strikes succeeded only in sinking a fishing boat and slightly damaging radar equipment at the missile-launching site.

“America has gone mad. . . . They attacked a fishing boat and claimed it was a gunboat. They deny their planes were shot down, but they are lying,” Kadafi said. He conceded that the radar equipment was struck by two U.S. missiles but said that one of them failed to explode and has been turned over to Soviet experts “for study.” He also added that Libya allowed a U.S. helicopter to cross the “line of death” to pick up a dead pilot and another “dying man.”

According to the U.S. account, there were no American casualties because all of the missiles fired by the Libyans missed. Diplomats with access to Libyan military sources have confirmed this version and said that at least 24 Libyan sailors were killed in U.S. action against the patrol boats.

Trying to Cool Crisis

Despite his rhetoric, observers noted that Kadafi couched his threat against European countries hosting U.S. bases in the conditional, saying that Libya would retaliate only if the United States attacks again. This appeared to be consistent with a view held by diplomats here that Kadafi is trying to cool the crisis for now.

According to this view, Kadafi realizes that his armed forces are “no match for the Americans” and knows that he can’t risk another open military confrontation because of the Soviet Union’s refusal to support him this time with anything more than words, one Western diplomat said.

Thus his only option is to claim a great victory and “cool it for now,” though the possibility of a terrorist reprisal later cannot be excluded, another diplomat said.

Demonstrators outside the military barracks where Kadafi spoke from the flood-lit balcony of a two-story building waved banners and chanted, “Reagan is a failed actor who wants to rule the world but can’t.”

Well-Rehearsed Fervor

As was the case with earlier anti-American demonstrations this week, Saturday’s revolutionary fervor appeared to have been well rehearsed and staged for the benefit of visiting Western reporters, whose presence in the audience Kadafi acknowledged in his speech.

Most of the chanting was done only by a small group of several hundred demonstrators surrounding Western television cameras. Elsewhere in the crowd, young fatigue-clad men and women seemed to be more interested in chatting, flirting and swapping cigarettes and chewing gum than in listening to their leader.

The people were all bused to the site for the occasion and included a visiting Bulgarian folk dance troupe whose members seemed a bit bewildered by the fact they were there.