Obama defends US military action in Libya

• Nato prepares to take on full control of miltiary operation • Britain and France call on Gadaffi to go ‘before it is too late’ • Gadaffi’s forces retain control of Sirte • Read our latest Libya news story here • Read a summary of events so far 1.08am: Some reaction Twitter to Obama’s speech. @ChangeInLibya , a Libyan anti-Gaddafi activist, tweets: Obama also said that “[they] are working with the opposition”. That’s all I needed to hear. #libya #feb17 12.53am: The president cited the warm welcome afforded to US pilots whose jet fighter crashed in the east of Libya. It was a reflection, he said, of the desire for change and a sign of hope, even after the “demonisation” of the US for so long by Gaddafi. Wherever people long to be free, they will find a friend in the United States, he added, without mentioning the casualties caused to local villagers during the US extraction operation for one of the downed air crew. 12.52am: Turning to the road ahead, he said: “As the bulk of our military effort ratchets down, what we can do – and will do – is support the aspirations of the Libyan people.” “We have intervened to stop a massacre, and we will work with our allies and partners as they’re in the lead to maintain the safety of civilians. We will deny the regime arms, cut off its supply of cash, assist the opposition, and work with other nations to hasten the day when Gaddafi leaves power.” “It may not happen overnight, as a badly weakened Gaddafi tries desperately to hang on to power. But it should be clear to those around Gadaffi, and to every Libyan, that history is not on his side. With the time and space that we have provided for the Libyan people, they will be able to determine their own destiny, and that is how it should be.” 12.51am: Obama added: “The task that I assigned our forces – to protect the Libyan people from immediate danger, and to establish a No Fly Zone – carries with it a UN mandate and international support. It is also what the Libyan opposition asked us to do.” “If we tried to overthrow Gaddafi by force, our coalition would splinter. We would likely have to put U.S. troops on the ground, or risk killing many civilians from the air. The dangers faced by our men and women in uniform would be far greater. So would the costs, and our share of the responsibility for what comes next.” “To be blunt, we went down that road in Iraq. Thanks to the extraordinary sacrifices of our troops and the determination of our diplomats, we are hopeful about Iraq’s future. But regime change there took eight years, thousands of American and Iraqi lives, and nearly a trillion dollars. That is not something we can afford to repeat in Libya. ” 12.50am: “Moreover, America has an important strategic interest in preventing Gaddafi from overrunning those who oppose him,” he adds. “A massacre would have driven thousands of additional refugees across Libya’s borders, putting enormous strains on the peaceful – yet fragile – transitions in Egypt and Tunisia. The democratic impulses that are dawning across the region would be eclipsed by the darkest form of dictatorship, as repressive leaders concluded that violence is the best strategy to cling to power. “The writ of the UN Security Council would have been shown to be little more than empty words, crippling its future credibility to uphold global peace and security. So while I will never minimize the costs involved in military action, I am convinced that a failure to act in Libya would have carried a far greater price for America. 12.48am: The President is now tackling the argument of critics on the Libyan intervention. “To brush aside America’s responsibility as a leader and – more profoundly – our responsibilities to our fellow human beings under such circumstances would have been a betrayal of who we are,” he said. “Some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries. The United States of America is different. And as President, I refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action.” 12.42am: The president is now moving in a section of the speech that appears designed to underline how the US is pulling back from the operation, after succeeding in its initial goals. “The United States of American has done what we said we would do,” he said. “That is not to say our work is complete,” says the president, who outlines how the US military will continue to be involved in the Nato operation, while humanitarian aid will continue to be provided to the Libyan people. 12.39am: In just one month, the US has worked with our international partners, secured a coalition, stopped an advancing army and secured a no-fly zone, the president said. To put it in context, he added “when people were being brutalised” in Bosnia in the 1990s it took the international community as long as a year. “It took us 31 days,” he said. 12.38am: The rebel-held city of Benghazi would have suffered a massacre that would have reverberated across the region and “stained the conscience of the world” if action had not been taken, said Obama. 12.35am: In the face of the world’s condemnation, Gaddafi chose to escalate his attacks rather than stepping down, Obama said. “At my direction, American led and effort without allies at the UN to pass an historic resolution,” he said, name-checking “European allies” and the Arab League. 12.33am: “Mindful of the cost of military action, we are reluctant to use force,” he said, but there has been a responsibility to act in the case of Libya. 12.32am: Obama has started by paying tribute to US troops on the ground in Afghanistan and on duty elsewhere. 12.26am: We’re expecting Barack Obama to make a speech on Libya in the next few minutes. We’ll bring you coverage of that as it happens. 11.58pm: While the spotlight has fallen on the looming showdown between rebels and pro-Gaddafi forces outside the town of Sirte, each side is still claiming control over parts of Misrata, Libya’s third largest city, east of Tripoli. With the constant crackle of automatic fire ringing out around the city, Misrata bore the marks of intense fighting, and plumes of smoke rose high above its dusty skyline, according to a Reuters report filed after journalists were taken to view one of its suburbs. Houses were riddled with bullet holes. Windows were smashed and rubble littered its deserted streets. “Down with Gaddafi,” said graffiti scrawled on one wall. No civilians were in sight and residential houses appeared abandoned. A herd of camels quietly crossed a street strewn with smouldering rubble and fallen electricity poles. Burned hulks of military and civilian vehicles and blown-up fuel tanks and shipping containers were scattered about. Areas north of Tripoli Street in southern Misrata which appeared to be under state control were off limits to visiting journalists, and there was gunfire from that direction. A small crowd of Gaddafi supporters, including children, waved flags in front of a Libyan state television camera broadcasting live images to Libya’s seven million people from what it described as “liberated Misrata”. “Misrata is ours. There are still some bad guys in other parts, but Gaddafi is winning, the city is ours,” said Abdul Karim, a local resident, a green bandana around his head. A Libyan army officer said rebel forces had been pushed out to the northern part of the city. “Yes there are still some bad guys. We squeezed them out, there are less than 100 of them. We control the city,” he said. Nearby, soldiers manned checkpoints and rag-tag bands of government militiamen stood in front of battered buildings. Several pro-Gaddafi gunmen were visible on rooftops. Anti-aircraft guns pointed into the sky and tanks were hidden under large leafy trees. The atmosphere was nervous, and soldiers were on edge. As distant gunfire intensified, panicked government minders herded journalists into their vehicles and rushed out of the city before dark. Outside Misrata, a coastal road leading to Tripoli was firmly under government control. Checkpoints were reinforced with anti-aircraft guns. Slabs of concrete blocked the highway. Rebel Saadoun al-Misrati said pro-Gaddafi forces had been trying to advance on the eastern front and rebels were heavily engaged with them. “We are determined not to allow them to enter the main street to the east as they did with Tripoli Street.” Rebels and a resident said eight people were killed when forces loyal to Gaddafi resumed attacks on Sunday. 11.13pm: The Libyan foreign minister, Moussa Koussa, has arrived in Tunisia for a “private visit”, according to Tunisia’s official news agency, the BBC reports. Tunisia’s foreign ministry was reported to have said that Koussa was on a “private visit”. 11.07pm: Libya’s army is pouring reinforcements into Sirte, reports the Guardian’s Ian Black from Muammar Gaddafi’s strategic hometown . He reports that units of regular soldiers in jeeps were driving towards the town on Monday as the frontline moved ominously closer to a key regime stronghold for what could turn out to be the decisive battle of the war. Crowds gathered in central Martyrs Square to chant pro-regime slogans and fire bursts of machine-gun fire into the air – that bizarre Libyan ritual of celebrating reverses and expressing determination to resist. But there were signs of anxiety when an aircraft was heard far overhead. Many shops were shut. Libyan forces are deployed outside Sirte and nervousness is evident at the makeshift roadblocks manned by police or militiamen at intervals of just a few hundred yards in some places. To the west the soldiers at a mobile radar battery – part of the country’s now battered air defence system – looked especially apprehensive. In early afternoon a convoy of 15 Toyota Land Cruisers carrying groups of fresh-looking regular soldiers moved east from Misrata where some rebels are still holding out. But there were no signs of heavy armour or artillery – perhaps because these have been easily hit in coalition air strikes in the battles for Ajdabiya, Ras Lanuf and Brega over the past few days. Lightly armed infantrymen, backed up by militiamen and civilians driving mud-smeared cars armed en masse by the government will be a far more elusive target for allied pilots if they are involved in a battle for a sizeable town or skirmishes along the coastal road. 10.56pm: Chris McGreal reports for the Guardian from the Libyan rebels’ frontline staging post at Wadi al-Ahmar , where he was told of ‘dirty tricks’ on the part of pro-Gaddafi troops dug in to defend the key town of Sirte. Suliman Abdul Mula was not surprised when he saw the white flag waved by a group of Muammar Gaddafi’s soldiers caught between western air strikes and the rapid advance of Libya’s rebels. “We saw they raised the white flag. We thought they no longer wanted to fight for Gaddafi. They are losing and no one in Libya wants to die for Gaddafi any more,” said the 31-year-old. “But when we approached, they opened fire. It was a trick.” Several of the rebels were wounded, including one whose left arm was hanging by a string of flesh. Another soldier with Mula estimated that there were 100 or more government soldiers in the group flying the white flag as the rebels pushed forward to within 50 miles of the strategically and politically important town of Sirte where Gaddafi was born. The soldier said that as soon as the rebels got close enough, Gaddafi’s forces shot at them with machine guns. Mula was outraged. “Everyone knows the white flag if for surrender. These are Gaddafi’s dirty tricks,” he said. 10.46pm: Air strikes have hit the town of Surman, 70 km west of Tripoli, according to Libyan state television, Reuters reports. 10.14pm: British voters – by a margin of 47 percent to 43 percent – did not back the decision to commit British armed forces to the Libya action, according to a ComRes survey for The Independent. It also suggested that 71 percent were concerned that the UK could be “dragged into a prolonged conflict like the Iraq war”. Almost a quarter (24 percent said they did not share that fear. A majority of those who expressed an opinion (46 percent to 40 percent said they believed Gaddafi was a legitimate target. And more than two-thirds (68percent) agreed that the Libya mission showed the government should not be cutting defence spending. 10.10pm: Downing Street has said that David Cameron set out his priorities for tomorrow’s London summit on Libya in a video conference with US president Barack Obama, French president Nicolas Sarkozy and Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel. The Prime Minister’s spokesman added: “He hoped it would strengthen and broaden the coalition of countries committed to implementing the UN resolutions and protecting the people of Libya; it would discuss plans for the provision of urgent humanitarian assistance; and it would call for a political process which would allow the people of Libya to shape their own future.” “There was also a discussion of the reform process in Egypt and agreement on the importance of revitalising the Middle East peace process.” 10.03pm: Efforts appear to be under way to offer Muammar Gaddafi a way of escape from Libya , with Italy saying it is trying to organise an African haven for him, and the US signalling it will not try to stop the dictator from fleeing. Julian Borger and Richard Norton-Taylor report for the Guardian on a move that comes as diplomatic and military pressure on Gaddafi mounts. On the eve of tomorrow’s London conference, focused on coordinating assistance in the face of a possible humanitarian disaster, Italy offered to broker the ceasefire deal in Libya, involving asylum for Gaddafi in an African country. “Gaddafi must understand that it would be an act of courage to say: ‘I understand that I have to go’,” said the Italian foreign minister, Franco Frattini. “We hope that the African Union can find a valid proposal.” 9.55pm: Some more from that Pentagon briefing. The coalition carried out strikes against the command headquarters of one of Muammar Gaddafi’s most loyal units, which has been one of the most active attacking civilians, Admiral Bill Gortney said. Gortney also said coalition had fired six Tomahawk cruise missiles in the past 24 hours and had carried out 178 air sorties, most of them strike-related. 9.08pm: The coalition has flown 178 sorties in the skies over Libya in the last 24 hours, the Pentagon briefing has been told by Vice Admiral Gortney. He made a point of saying that Qatari jets have now also taken part in the operations and that air force units from the United Arab Emirates are ready to take part over the course of the next day or two. 9.04pm: A briefing is underway at the Pentagon, where a spokesman says that coalition forces have yet to receive “a single, confirmed” report of civilians deaths as a result of air strikes. 8.49pm: The Gaddafi regime has carried out a spate of enforced disappearances, according to Amnesty International , which has published a new report. ‘Libya: detainees, disappeared and missing’ details more 30 cases of individuals who were ‘disappeared’ since before the beginning of protests against the regime. Children were also among those seized as rebel forces seized control of the eastern city of Benghazi and pro-Gaddafi forces retreated, according to Amnesty. A relative of 14-year-old schoolboy Hassan Mohammad al-Qata’ni told the organisation: “I haven’t slept since he’s gone missing, nobody in my family has slept; we are so worried; he is just a kid; we don’t know what to do, where to look for him, who to turn to for help.” 8.45pm: Now to Syria, where security forces fired shots and used teargas to disperse up to 4,000 protesters in the volatile Syrian city of Deraa earlier today. As frustration continues to mount at the slow pace of promised reforms, the Guardian has a report from inside Syria , where protesters appear to be consolidating their positions in Deraa in the deep south and in the northern port city of Latakia despite the widespread presence of security forces. 8.38pm: The Guardian’s Richard Adams has been blogging from Washington DC on Barack Obama’s speech later tonight on Libya: While opinion polls show American voters broadly in favour of the military action, the demand for more detail comes in two forms. One is that the administration has not set out its objectives clearly. The other is to explain why Libya’s pro-democracy forces deserve US aid delivered via Tomahawk cruise missiles, and those in Yemen or Syria – for example – do not. Setting out the precise extent of the US mission will be the more difficult of the two. The administration has already said clearly that overthrowing or killing Gaddafi himself is not the mission’s objective. That has given Obama’s Republican and neocon critics an opening to criticise the president’s handling of the action while still supporting it overall. At an event in DC today, Obama gave a quick preview of his remarks, saying: “Our involvement [in Libya] is going to be limited, both in time and in scope.” So Obama should outline exactly what that means this evening – especially the “time limited” part. On the second point, earlier today Obama’s deputy national security adviser Denis McDonough said the argument that the president would make for US involvement in Libya cannot be applied to the protests going on elsewhere in the region. 8.33pm: For those in need of a basic up-to-date primer on Nato’s assumption of control over operations in Libyan skies and seas, here’s a quick Q&A from Julian Borger, the Guardian’s diplomatic editor: Who is running the military operation? Officially Nato has taken over all military operations. But at the moment it is only running the naval blockade, which is enforcing the arms embargo, and the no-fly zone. The Nato commander, Lieutenant General Charles Bouchard, will assume control of the most controversial operations, the air strikes against Gaddafi’s ground forces, in a few days’ time. Why is there a delay in Nato taking over air strikes? Bouchard said that the handover would take some days because it was “complex”. The delay gives more time to the existing coalition, co-ordinated by the US but led by the French and British, to continue to choose their own targets for bombing. Will the handover to Nato control make any difference? Nato’s 28-member countries agreed rules of engagement for air strikes on Sunday. As sceptics like Turkey and Germany were involved in the draft, the rules are likely to be more restrictive that those being used by the French and the British, who have been bombing Libyan government forces across the country. 8.24pm: The Ministry of Defence has said that two RAF Tornados conducting reconnaissance flights over the area “around” the Libyan town of Misrata fired Brimstone missiles which destroyed two main battle tanks and two armoured vehicles. 8.18pm: The UN Security Council has been meeting to discuss Libya and is currently being briefed on the progress of sanctions imposed on the Gaddafi regime. The briefing is being given by the Portuguese UN Ambassador, Jose Filipe Moraes Cabral, who chairs the committee overseeing the sanctions. Laura Trevelyan, the BBC’s UN correspondent, reports that the security council will go into a closed session later where she said that it will talk about adding the names of additional Libyan officials who could be the subject of sanctions. However, that meeting is also an opportunity for certain countries to speak out against the sanctions. 8.12pm: Western air strikes have hit civilian and military areas in the towns of Garyan and Misdah, Libyan state television is reporting, according to Reuters. 8.04pm: From Cairo, Jack Shenker has more on that statement by Egypt’s ruling generals that the ousted president, Hosni Mubarak has been placed under house arrest. The revelation by Egypt’s Supreme Council of the Armed Forces – who have been in power since Mubarak’s three-decade dictatorship succumbed to revolution last month – was an attempt to quash speculation that the ailing 82 year old had fled to Saudi Arabia to receive medical treatment. The Saudi monarch, King Abdullah, has been a stalwart supporter of Mubarak throughout Egypt’s recent turmoil, and has repeatedly offered the former president sanctuary in the kingdom. In an announcement on its official facebook page, the Egyptian military said: “Out of the supreme military council’s belief in the importance of maintaining communication with the Egyptian people and the youth of the revolution, we stress [that] news of the departure of former president Mohamed Hosni Mubarak to Tabuk in Saudi Arabia is not true, as he is under house arrest along with his family.” For now, Mubarak remains in internal exile in the Red Sea resort of Sharm El Sheikh. He and his family are facing a raft of corruption charges and have already been hit by a travel ban and asset freeze. The latest moves against Mubarak come amid renewed criticism of Egypt’s armed forces as they begin to prepare for national elections later this year and a planned transition towards democratic, civilian government. 7.57pm: The US is preparing to pull a number of vessels from the Mediterranean as Nato takes over operations, US military officials have told Reuters. 7.44pm: Is this the soundtrack to the Libyan uprising? Some young Libyans have put together a rap song as their sound track to the rising against the Gaddafi. It’s been posted on YouTube, while it can be viewed with English language subtitles on this site . To watch the full video, turn off the auto-refresh button at the top of this page. _ 7.28pm: The “Arab Spring” might have “stopped in its tracks” without the military response unleashed against the actions of Muammar Gaddafi, tweets the former US State department spokesman, PJ Crowley : Crowley, who fell on his sword after criticising the treatment of Bradley Manning , the alleged source of the WikiLeaks files, has given an interview to the BBC’s HardTalk programme . He was at pains to differentiate what is happening in Libya with the US-led campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to advance interview snippets released by the BBC. “They’re of a totally different magnitude and totally different purpose. There’s no question that in protecting civilians you are also protecting political opposition, you are creating a level playing field so that the opposition has a fair opportunity to make its case to the Libyan people and to force Gaddafi to step down,” said Crowley. 7.27pm: We’ve also published an interesting piece debating the proposal by Turkey for a ceasefire and a negotiated solution . The Paris-based writer Nabia Ramdani supports the calls by the Turkish prime minister. Prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s suggestion that what started out as a wholly humanitarian effort is deteriorating into a “second Iraq” or “another Afghanistan” is entirely correct. Cruise and Tomahawk missiles do not bring peace to a country any more than AK-47-wielding paramilitaries expressing vague affiliations to overseas governments. Atrocities have certainly been committed by Gaddafi’s army as it fights to put down the rebellion, but the killing on both sides is unremitting. Whereas our Middle East expert Brian Whitaker says we should wait for the imminent collapse of the Gadaffi regime. Amid repeated claims that Libya could turn into another Iraq or Afghanistan, there are growing calls for a negotiated solution. Such talk at the moment serves no purpose, apart from throwing a lifeline to the Gaddafi family and helping them maintain their grip on the country, or at least some of it. Calls for negotiation are predicated on the idea that the situation in Libya will reach a political/military impasse. It might do, but it hasn’t yet – so there is no need to start behaving as if it had. A more likely scenario, though, is that the Gaddafi regime will implode suddenly and fairly soon – in a matter of weeks rather than months or years. We should at least wait to see if that is what happens. 7.18pm: The Guardian’s award-winning photographer, Sean Smith, has spent the past month in Libya documenting the uprising, from its triumphant beginnings in Benghazi to its near-defeat, and its apparent rescue by the coalition air strikes. Here’s a collection of his best images in this gallery . _ 7.02pm: After half hour on the ground in the town of Misrata, CNN’s Nic Robertson tweets that Libyan government minders have been loading journalists on to a bus again to bring them back to Tripoli: _ 6.56pm: The British prime minister David Cameron and the French president Nicolas Sarkozy have released a joint statement setting out the objectives of an international conference on Libya being hosted by the UK in London tomorrow. Britain and France of course have been at the forefront of the military action – and at the brunt of criticism that it is tipping over into the area of regime change. The statement is pretty bullish: it says military operations would end “only when the civilian population are safe and secure from the threat of attack”. The current regime has “completely lost its legitimacy” and Gaddafi must “go immediately” the statement says, calling on the dictator’s supporters to “leave him before it is too late”. 6.30pm: Good evening and welcome to our continuing coverage of the Libya crisis. Here is a summary of events so far today. • Ahead of a UK-hosted summit on Libya tomorrow, the British and French leaders have issued a joint statement calling on Gadaffi to step down “before it is too late”. Both countries have rejected criticism that the coalition-led operation has gone beyond the terms of the UN resolution that authorised it. • Rebels and pro-Gadaffi forces are gearing up for a battle for Sirte, the psycologically important birthplace of the Libyan leader. Revolutionary forces had advanced more than 150 miles in two days, helped by coalition air strikes, breaking the stalemate at Ajdabiya streaming along Libya’s coastal road. But they appear to have halted about 50km east of Sirte, with reports of pro-Gadaffi forces advancing the other way. • Barack Obama is due to make a speech on the Libya crisis tonight. Libya Nato Ben Quinn guardian.co.uk

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