Gadhafi tried 1992 cash for missile bid in Argentina

Libyan president Moammer Gadhafi offered 4 million US dollars to Argentine president Carlos Menem's 1989 campaign in exchange for ballistic missiles, a former minister said.

But when Menem discovered the alleged deal between his campaign officials and Gadhafi in 1992, he opposed it, former economy minister Domingo Cavallo told a news conference on June 27. The contribution was to be in exchange for a sale of the sophisticated ballistic missile–the Condor II–then being developed by the Argentine Air Force, to Libya. Cavallo, promoting his book “The Burden of Truth,” said Menem scrapped the Condor project after Gadhafi himself informed him about the campaign contribution when they met in Belgrade on the sidelines of a non-aligned summit in 1989.

A presidential spokesman described Cavallo as a "big liar" whose accusations were motivated by his own bid to be elected this October. The 200 million US dollar missile project, financed mostly by Iraq, was initiated after Argentina's defeat in a 1982 war with Britain over the Falkland Islands in the south Atlantic. Its cancellation drew opposition and nationalist accusations that Menem was bowing to US pressure.