President Obama celebrated the death of ousted Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi on Thursday as a major victory for the Libyan people and a vindication of his own foreign policy.
“This comes at a time when we see the strength of American leadership across the world,” Obama said from the Rose Garden as reports broke that Gadhafi had been killed, ending an eight-month battle against the fallen ruler’s autocratic regime.
“We’ve taken out al Qaeda leaders, and we’ve put them on the path to defeat,” Obama said, giving his administration credit for the recent U.S.-led killings of al Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden and Anwar al-Awlaki. “We’re winding down the war in Iraq and have begun a transition in Afghanistan. And now, working in Libya with friends and allies, we’ve demonstrated what collective action can achieve in the 21st century.”
Gadhafi, 69, died at the hands of Libyan rebels in his hometown of Sirte, roughly 280 miles east of the capital, Tripoli. Photographs and videos released to the media show a bloodied Gadhafi with apparent gunshot wounds.
Libyan Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril said Gadhafi would be buried in Misrata on Friday.
Announcing Gadhafi’s death was a satisfying moment for Obama, whose handling of the Arab Spring uprisings has been derided by critics as inconsistent, uninformed and, at times, unnecessary.
Republican lawmakers were livid when Obama in March authorized a missile attack on Gadhafi forces without first consulting Congress. Some said he never should have involved American forces in a NATO-led mission in Libya. Others blasted Obama’s decision to let other countries take the lead on the Libyan mission, insisting that the United States should lead any military mission in which it participates.
“Without putting a single U.S. service member on the ground, we achieved our objectives, and our NATO mission will soon come to an end,” Obama said.
Obama stopped short of declaring the Libya mission a model for all future American military actions, however. Instead, Vice President Biden took that liberty.
“NATO got it right,” Biden said during a trip to New Hampshire. “In this case, America spent $2 billion and didn’t lose a single life. This is more the prescription for how to deal with the world as we go forward than it has in the past.”
(White House press secretary Jay Carney later amended Biden’s estimation of how much the United States spent in Libya, saying it is “far less than $2 billion — between $1 [billion] and $2 billion total.”)
Shortly after Obama finished his remarks, NATO issued a statement indicating plans to end the mission in Libya.
“NATO and our partners have successfully implemented the historic mandate of the United Nations to protect the people of Libya,” NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said. “We will terminate our mission in coordination with the United Nations and the National Transitional Council.”
But Obama said the United States must continue to play a supportive role during Libya’s transition to a functioning democracy, warning that the nation has a “long and winding” road ahead. Part of the U.S. role will involve helping Libya’s new government recover the nation’s weapons, such as shoulder-fired missiles, so they don’t fall into the hands of terrorists, Carney said.
