When Moammar Gadhafi renounced chemical weapons in 2003, the Libyan dictator surprised skeptics by moving quickly to eliminate his country's toxic arsenal. He signed international treaties, built a disposal facility and allowed inspectors to oversee the destruction of tons of mustard gas.
But Gadhafi's public break with weapons of mass destruction was not all that it seemed. Only after his death in 2011 did investigators learn that he had retained a large stash of chemical weapons. In a hillside bunker deep in Libya's southeastern desert, Gadhafi had tucked away hundreds of battle-ready warheads loaded with deadly sulfur mustard.
The story of Gadhafi's deception now looms over nascent efforts to devise a plan for destroying the chemical arsenal of Syrian President Bashar Assad, another strongman who, in a stunning reversal, has agreed in principle to give up his stockpile under U.S. and Russian pressure.