broaden those out. that s a sticking point. when you think about the developments on the ground in libya, these are the kinds of issues that every morning when these nations wake up and look at what s going on on the ground, they think to themselves, do they want to go this far with this. these are the things brought it out table today. secretary of state clinton having to work the phones to make sure they could get the agreement this quickly in order to meet the white house timetable to make sure that command can be handed over in a matter of days and not weeks, joe? just highlighting that issue of the rules of engagement for air strikes, i have to ask you, originally it was thought that the arab league was fully on board on this issue and after the air strikes began, certain among them appeared to start pulling back. was it because of the rules of engagement and the way the air strikes were being handled? it was because again, it wasn t explicitly said exactly
lot of arab heads of state in saying we trust nato to be able to conduct this, not forgetting that turkey is at the table, one of the 2 countries in this alliance. joe? paula newton, get back to us, will you, if you have any updates. let s bring in hala gorani. you ve been doing a great job reporting. it looks like they re very close to i adil, apparently still trying to get together on the rules of engagement for air strikes. what do you make of it? it s interesting the deal is coming almost a week into the air strikes themselves. it appeared when this effort started that there was some sort of agreement, that this was an organized coalition where it was clear who was going to lead for how many days, who was going to then pass over power or command and control power to another country or to another entity such as nate toe. however, it does appear now they ve come to some sort of agreement. france wanted a political steering committee to call the shots with more the military strate
agreement. one other point i should make is that you know, we re waiting to find out if perhaps the president will make any public comments about this to the american people. there have been a lot of questions about the president perhaps not fully explaining all of the ins and outs of this mission to the american people. the white house has pushed back on that saying from the beginning whether it be in press conferences or statements that the president has been very forthcoming in laying out what this mission is about, and that is protecting the innocent lives in libya and to prevent that region from becoming destabilized. so they don t think that the president has not been doing a good job of talking to american people but today jay carney leaving open the possibility of perhaps the president will be saying more on that issue, joe. dan, there is a disconnect here though and simply put is that the u.n. resolution says no regime change. that s not what we re interested in, but the pre
anyone here in this administration really knows what the next step will be for gadhafi himself. he has been very defiant and it doesn t appear that that s going to change anytime soon. dan lothian, thanks so much. we ll be getting back to you. now let s go to paula newton live at nato headquarters in brussels. what are you hearing? reporter: joe, the nato ambassadors are just wrapping up the meeting here. we expect a statement shortly but we know that the agreement has been hammered out and the sticking point was whether or not there was going to be a plan in place not just for the naval blockade or the no-fly zone but crucially military air strikes when and how they would be employed. it seems any concerns that the turkish alliance here had, the officials have been basically soothed, that that phone call that miss clinton had with her counterparts in the uk and france and turkey went a long way in assuring many that
how far that coles of the willing would go in order to make sure that there wasn t any kind of a massacre in libya. they were afraid of seeing civilian casualties on the ground. and to a certain extent, they still are. remember that nato planes have already had to return to base with their bombs still strapped to their airplanes because they were afraid that they were risking civilian casualties. this is a real case on the ground. a lot of phone calls made to the arab partners saying look, we understand what you re saying and take a good look at those arguments and make sure they absolutely have to be hit. at the same time, though, and you ll have many people here tell you this, that this situation can get messy. mistakes are made. for that reason even more, joe, turkey had to push to make sure that any kind of ad hoc agreement, political agreement that france may have wanted was not on the table that nato had to make sure that they would be calling the shots here. that seems to have c