US to set up office in Libya for arms inspectors

The officials said the proposed office -- first reported by The Washington Post -- would give the inspectors logistical, technical and secretarial support, but they took issue with the Post's description of it as a diplomatic mission.

"Of course we want to support the verification teams with office space, computers, maybe a small staff, et cetera," one senior official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

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"But we're not talking about a diplomatic mission in the traditional sense of an embassy or even a small consulate," the official said. "That would be way, way premature. We don't even have diplomatic relations with Libya yet."

The Post reported that Washington would dispatch a dozen diplomats and intelligence officers to Libya to staff the mission in a move that would mark the return of US diplomats to the country after more than two decades.

It said the office would be the first US "diplomatic presence" since the US embassy in Tripoli was closed down in May 1980, shortly before it was pillaged and burned.

But the paper quoted one US official as stressing that the mission would not be an embassy.

"There's no real planning for that yet," the official told the Post. "But there is a belief that we have to have a group of people on the ground basically as a special mission to help this (disarmament) process over the long term."