The mission is to protect civilians,” says Gen. Carter Ham, the man in command of U.S. attacks on Libya. “If civilians are attacked, we have an obligation under the [U.N.] Security Council resolution and the mission that’s been given to me to protect those civilians.” It seems clear enough; after all, Resolution 1973, the basis for American action in Libya, calls for “all necessary measures … to protect civilians.” But listen closely to U.S. officials, and you’ll see they’re having a difficult time figuring out who deserves protection and who doesn’t.
At first, the mission seemed relatively simple, although not exactly easy: Use American air power to establish a no-fly zone to prevent Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi from using his planes to crush opposition forces and kill civilians. But the United Nations coalition decided to go beyond creating and maintaining a no-fly zone to actually attacking Gadhafi’s ground forces. When Vice Adm. Bill Gortney, director of the Joint Staff, was asked if Gadhafi’s troops “are a legitimate target of this coalition,” he answered: “If they are moving and advancing on to the opposition forces in Libya, yes, we will take them under attack.”
Once committed to hitting enemy forces on the ground, though, U.S. leaders faced a problem built into the U.N. mandate to protect civilians. Are opposition fighters civilians? Are they military? What about civilians who are loyal to Gadhafi? Do they warrant protection, too? Gen. Ham, speaking to reporters from his headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany, on Monday, had some difficulty sorting it out.
“It’s a very problematic situation,” Ham said. “It’s not a clear distinction, because we’re not talking about a regular military force. Many in the opposition truly are civilians, and they are trying to protect their homes, their families, their businesses, and in doing that some of them have taken up arms. But they are basically civilians.”
So they are protected by American pilots. But what about the rest of the anti-Gadhafi forces? “There are also those in the opposition that have armored vehicles and have heavy weapons,” Ham continued. “Those parts of the opposition, I would argue, are no longer covered under the protect-civilians clause.”
The bottom line: The United States will protect Libyan rebels if they unarmed or lightly armed. If those rebels are heavily armed, no.
When it came to explaining the mission, Ham had a much easier time of it than State Department spokesman Mark Toner. Meeting reporters in Foggy Bottom on Monday, Toner had just finished stressing the responsibility to protect civilians when a reporter asked, “Will the coalition act to protect civilians who support Gadhafi?”
“I’m sorry,” Toner stammered. “Do you mean, we always, we, in what way, I’m unclear about …” Toner finally collected himself and declared that all civilians should be protected.
If government officials are having trouble describing how the mission works, just think of the crews on board American warplanes over Libya. As Gen. Ham described it, part of their job is to divine the intent of the Libyans they see on the ground thousands of feet below them.
Ham was asked what U.S. forces are instructed to do when they encounter pro-Gadhafi military units that are heavily armed but aren’t actually attacking civilians. “What we look for is, to the degree that we can, to discern intent,” Ham explained. He described a hypothetical situation in which an American pilot spotted a Libyan unit south of Benghazi. If the pilot determined the unit was moving toward the city, he could attack. If he determined the unit was setting up some sort of position, he could also attack. But if he determined the unit was moving away, then he couldn’t attack. “There’s no simple answer,” Ham said. “Sometimes these are situations that brief much better at headquarters than they do in the cockpit of an aircraft.”
Throughout the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, American military forces have been called on to make sometimes painstaking judgments about when to exercise force. Restrictive rules of engagement have led to situations in which Americans died rather than take action that could have resulted in civilian casualties. And yet civilian casualties happened anyway, because they always do in war.
Now, American forces are once again operating under complicated restraints in a volatile situation where it’s hard to tell who’s who. No wonder political leaders of both parties are asking President Obama for a more careful and detailed explanation of how this is supposed to end.
Byron York, The Examiner’s chief political correspondent, can be contacted at [email protected].
