Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi plans to go camping — in New Jersey

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi will set foot on U.S. soil for the first time next month when he comes to address the U.N. General Assembly. Now he wants to put down stakes in the middle of American suburbia.

Plans to set up a tent and allow him to stay at a Libyan-owned estate in this upscale community 12 miles north of Manhattan were attacked Monday by neighborhood residents and public officials, particularly after the hero's welcome Libya extended last week to the lone man convicted in the 1988 bombing of Pan American Flight 103.

The attack over Lockerbie, Scotland, thought to be the work of Libyan intelligence, killed all 259 people on board the flight, including 33 from New Jersey. Abdel Baset al-Megrahi was freed from a life sentence in a Scottish jail and returned to Libya on compassionate grounds because he is dying of cancer.

"Gadhafi is a dangerous dictator whose hands are covered with the blood of Americans and our allies," said U.S. Rep. Steve Rothman, whose district includes Englewood. He promised there would be "hell to pay" if the U.S. State Department violates a long-standing deal barring the dictator from staying at the Libyan estate.

State department officials said no decision had been made on the issue.

Rothman was mayor of Englewood 26 years ago when the city learned the Libyan Mission to the United Nations had purchased the Palisade Avenue estate. He said local officials worked out a deal with the U.S. State Department limiting its use to the recreational activities by the ambassador and his family. Gadhafi was expressly forbidden to live there, he said.

The Libyans don't pay taxes on the estate under the deal, current Englewood Mayor Michael Wildes said.

He said he would be very disappointed if Gadhafi visited.

"I'm not going over there with a honey cake," Wildes said.

Gadhafi's U.N. appearance culminates a yearslong effort to rehabilitate the Libyan strongman's international image, which has included denouncing terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. He's ruled the oil-rich North African kingdom since 1969.

"This is what happens when you have the path of appeasement," said Susan Cohen, of Cape May Court House, N.J. "He's getting everything he wants, and I guess that includes a trip to the state of New Jersey, which certainly doesn't need this."

Cohen's 20-year-old daughter died in the plane bombing.