mediterranean, add a french general or british admiral to it and claim that we re no longer in command. right now it is a u.s. army four-star general running the operation. so i think we could transition the command and control without much difficulty. the problem will come though if gadhafi s next move, as he s done before, is get inside urban areas with his armor, protect himself from allied air attack. at that point i don t see how the brits and the french and four fighter jets out of qatar make up the difference. the other claim that s been made is that there will be no american boots on the ground. this will strictly be an air campaign. from your experience, general, stla realiis that realistic at ? i think it might be. the problem with libya is the outcome is unknown, political objectives are unclear, a lot of fuzzy rhetoric floating around. i cannot imagine the president committing ground combat forces to the struggle in libya.
they were back in washington dealing with libya and japan right now because they do admit it would be a lot easier to be there than be on this trip at the same time, the repair work that would have gone into dealing with chile and brazil, seeing the president of the united states diss latin america. remember the indonesia trip got canceled not once but twice. what we see is really i would call it dual-track diplomacy. president on saturday was sticking to the schedule here in brazil though it had to slide a little bit. then doing briefings in between these meetings he s convened secure conference calls. so they say that the president is very much got his finger on what s happening in libya, but he also wants to stick to this latin american trip because they say this is a trip that s all about relationship building. well, it is and all about the economy. they hoped this would be something about jobs but of course none of that message is getting through. in every single update that y
who such as al qaeda that will come back and also be a problem to the security of our country. that s a major issue for us. i have to ask you here, congressman, about what the standard is for american intervention because a lot of people watching this, what s happening in libya, are saying, wait a minute, 52 people were shot dead in the streets of yemen on friday. we have same thing happening in syria, in bahrain. if this is about a moral stand, if it is a humanitarian mission, why not there? what s the difference? what should people know about that distinction? i think there is a big difference. the number one difference is moammar gadhafi himself and the fact that he has been killing his own people. the fact, as you pointed out before, that he has conducted terrorist acts before that. so number one, as i am repeating myself, but we have to protect those individuals. if we did not come in, the coalition did not come in when they did, i think gadhafi would have overtaken the oppo
a ranking member of the house committee on intelligence, participating in friday s meeting with top congressional leaders on libya. congressman, good morning. you were in the room. what exactly is the objective here? what should the american people know about what we re doing there and how long we ll be there? i think the most important thing is this is a united nations security council resolution with the support of the arab league. this makes this a lot different than, say, when president bush went into iraq unilaterally without the united nations. we agree on that point but what is the objective? the objective is to really number one, protect those people who are being slaughtered by the dictator, moammar gadhafi. i ve met moammar gadhafi. i find him to be a ruthless individual. he was involved with lockerbie. there was a family in the baltimore area whose daughter was killed. i think with the focus of this is now to take support the no-fly zone and that has happened now. no
yemen s ambassadors to jordan and syria and the yemeni parliament s deputy speaker. an unexpected blast of winter weather in southern california this weekend. snow, ice, flooding and rock slides led to evacuations and the closure of some major highways there. back now to the ongoing military campaign in libya. we re joined now by nbc s chief pentagon correspondent, jim miklaszewski. jim, good to see you this morning. good morning, willie. jim, what are you hearing out of the pentagon? we ve been getting pressure now the president has from democrats and republicans alike saying, whoa, slow down, we weren t even consulted about this in congress and really want to know the end game. is the pentagon doing a good enough job of explaining what we re doing in libya? pentagon and military officials right now will tell that you it is not their job to get the message out, it is the job of the white house and particularly the commander in chief. that s been the rap from many on capitol