""We like and appreciate what NATO did for
us," a smiling Belhadj said in an interview Saturday, referring to the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization bombing campaign against Kadafi's forces. "We now
have a popular Libyan revolution that doesn't have any Islamic
ideology." Belhadj conceded
that he might sue the CIA — he alleges that he was tortured while in its custody
in Bangkok, Thailand — but said he didn't have any hard feelings against the
United States or the West. He said his group had rejected overtures to affiliate
with Al
Qaeda and that Libya's new government will not be
Islamist..."Belhadj is a bad man," said one former CIA operative with long experience in
the Middle East who declined to be identified. "He's a capable Al Qaeda field
leader.... Belhadj was a serious enough actor for us to find him, kidnap him and
render him. He's somehow had a conversion to democracy? What do they base that
on? It's just a pipe dream." But the official U.S. position is
a stated belief in the new Libyan leadership's professed desire for a
representative and democratic state after more than four decades of Kadafi's
autocratic rule."