The World - News from March 9, 1989

The White House, responding to a report that a Japanese firm installed equipment at a suspected Libyan chemical weapons plant, said it is investigating “all aspects” of the project. The Detroit News, quoting congressional and Defense Department sources, reported that a team of 50 Japanese technicians and engineers from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries had installed metal-machining equipment used to make bomb canisters for poison gas at the Rabta complex, in the desert south of Tripoli. White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater declined to comment directly on the story, but he said the plant is a “matter of the utmost concern to the United States. . . . It is being looked into from all aspects by our intelligence services and investigative bodies.”