The Obama administration is preparing to turn over control of the Libyan no-fly zone to NATO, though American warplanes will continue to participate in the military assault against forces loyal to Libyan President Moammar Gadhafi, administration officials said Thursday. “We have agreed along with our NATO allies to transition command and control of the no-fly zone,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Thursday evening.
Though details were still being worked out, NATO’s 28 member nations could take control of enforcing the no-fly zone by this weekend, a move that would be in keeping with Obama’s stated goal of limiting U.S. participating in the military action.
Clinton said NATO control would lead to a “significant reduction in the use of U.S. planes.” But Pentagon officials say U.S. planes will continue flying over Libya to target Gadhafi’s air defense systems, ammunition depots and tanks.
“I would anticipate that we would continue to provide some of the interdiction strike packages as well, should that be needed,” said Joint Staff Director William Gortney.
The NATO agreement does not authorize missile attacks on Gadhafi’s tanks and other ground forces — an operation the U.S.-led coalition has been conducting for days, according to NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen.
“At this moment, there will still be a coalition operation and a NATO operation,” Rasmussen said, referring to the U.S.-led coalition that launched the attacks against Gadhafi’s forces five days ago. “We have taken on the responsibility for the no-fly zone while the coalition continues its activities.”
Clinton will fly to London Tuesday for a meeting of coalition allies to discuss the transition of control over the military operation.
“As the fighting continues … you are going to see the pressure ratcheted up for the United States or the coalition to do more,” said Jim Lindsay, vice president of the Council on Foreign Relations. “And that’s where you get into the dreaded ‘mission creep’… where you end up doing things you vowed not to do,” he said, suggesting that the U.S. and allies could be forced to deploy ground troops to defeat Gadhafi, something Obama said he would not do.
Gadhafi forces are better equipped than the opposition fighters, but the U.S. is wary of backing the rebels, about whom the U.S. still knows little.
This is “the first time in American history … we have used our military power to prop up and possibly put in power a group of people we literally do not know,” former U.S. Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns wrote in an editorial on Thursday.
Emerging from the pack of opposition groups is the 31-member Libyan National Council, which claims to represent the many competing interests of the tribal nation with a goal of establishing a Western-style democracy in Libya.
France and the Arab League were quick to recognize the council as the legitimate successor to Gadhafi, when and if he falls. But the U.S. has been more hesitant.
“Libya is not unlike the challenge in Afghanistan in that it is a nation of tribes,” said retired Lt. Gen. David Deptula. “There are over 400 tribes in Libya and so where is the guarantee that this National Council, when and if it replaces Gadhafi, is going to be any better than he was?”
