Obama: US role in Libya will be limited

March 19, 2011 at 12:00a.m.

McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON

As Western powers and Arab allies prepared to meet today for an emergency summit on Libya, President Barack Obama pledged to support a United Nations-backed military campaign against Col. Moammar Gadhafi but said that he wouldn’t send troops to Libyan soil or take over the operation.

Obama’s comments, a day after the U.N. Security Council authorized Great Britain and France to launch airstrikes to protect civilians and enforce a no-fly zone over Libya, signaled a circumscribed U.S. role in the troubled North African nation and came after a meeting with members of Congress, some of whom have voiced reservations about U.S. involvement.

In Libya, Gadhafi announced a cease-fire, but there were unconfirmed reports that his soldiers were moving toward Benghazi, a Mediterranean city of some 1 million people that is the capital of the rebel-controlled eastern portion of the country. Witnesses told the Arab satellite news channel Al-Jazeera that they had heard a loud blast and anti-aircraft fire, suggesting a bombing attack by Gadhafi aircraft.

People reached by phone in Benghazi said that the city’s residents remained defiant, but there were reports of panic in other parts of the east as residents waited for what they expected to be attacks by Gadhafi loyalists.

In Libya’s west, Al-Jazeera reported that Gadhafi forces were using tanks and artillery to shell Misrata, a city that has been in rebel hands for the past month.

With his administration and Congress divided over the wisdom of intervening, Obama said the U.S. military would play only a supporting part in the coalition, which also includes at least three Arab nations: Jordan, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

“American leadership is essential, but that does not mean acting alone,” Obama said. “It means shaping the conditions for the international community to act together.”

The U.S. would provide “unique capabilities” to enable European partners to enforce a no-fly zone, Obama said, and experts predicted that could include providing command and control, intelligence, surveillance and search-and-rescue functions. The military action could take place under NATO command or be led by France or Britain, both of which have warplanes and naval ships in the Mediterranean region and bases nearby.

British Prime Minister David Cameron said that Typhoon and Tornado fighter jets would be dispatched to the Mediterranean, where they would be in a position to stop Gadhafi’s forces from launching airstrikes on Benghazi. French leaders were more tight-lipped about their plans, but the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier is floating in the Mediterranean with a fleet of 40 combat aircraft.

Obama said that Gadhafi’s only chance to head off international use of force is to implement an immediate cease-fire; stop troops from advancing on Benghazi and other rebel-held cities; restore water, electricity and gas supplies that have been cut off; and allow humanitarian aid.

Obama said Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton would travel to Paris to participate in the summit today, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates would coordinate planning with international partners. Gates has been a skeptic of military intervention and has questioned whether imposing a no-fly zone would be “wise.”

Even without U.S. leadership, however, experts said that France and Britain each are capable of enforcing a no-fly zone, which would likely begin by destroying Libya’s arsenal of more than 420 surface-to-air missiles — many of which date to the early Cold War. The most worrisome of these to U.S. and European officials are four sites with SA-5 missiles, more modern, longer-range weapons that could reach over the Mediterranean, according to John Pike, the president of Globalsecurity.org, a defense research center.

Pike and others warned, however, that launching attacks on targets in Tripoli could lead to civilian deaths.

The vague language of the U.N. resolution authorizes “all necessary measures ... to protect civilians,” short of an occupying force, and France and Britain — the most passionate advocates of military force — haven’t specified whether they will seek to cripple Gadhafi’s military.