we re considerably far away from there. the air strikes have zoied all the forces that were tlenting the city. now the air strikes are helping an advance by the rebels. if the air strikes stop, then the rebels will no longer be able to advance and this could become a long, drawn-out stalemate. in ajdabiya, richard engel with the very latest. as part of the president s effort to more explain the mission in libya, hillary clinton and robert gates sat down here with me yesterday, secretary gates, secretary clinton, welcome back to meet the press. the president says this was days, not weeks, we re into the second week. has the mission been accomplished? i think the no-fly zone aspect has been accomplished. we haven t seen any of his planes fly since it started. i think we ve also been successful on the humanitarian side. we have prevented his forces from going to benghazi and we
that s might have come out of a gadhafi attack on benghazi. we ve got 700,000 refugees in the ivory coast right now, close to 1 million, in fact. why, why libya? hasn t been answered. do you think, savannah, that the president will make the case that in many ways this was a message being sent to the rest of the arab world, particularly the persian gulf, they felt they had to take a stand here? i think they felt they had to make a stand because you have to put this in the context of the arab spring. when you look at libya, you have to be looking at what happens what s going on with its neighbors. in fact, this week in south america, i asked the president point-blank, what is the national security interest of the u.s. in libya? and he cited egypt, tunisia, unrest in the region. the president is going to have to put it in that context. what s so fascinating about his rhetoric, though, is while he s saying the u.s. will take this
people that are not gadhafi supporters, started a civil war in libya, following civil wars in tunisia and egypt. and the facts are that that civil war was proceeding and in many cases the rebels seemed to be winning except when they got to benghazi, or in tripoli. so at this point we then adopt a no-fly zone with the thought of knocking out gadhafi s aircraft, then the ground zone situation, where we knocked out the tanks and trucks. having done all of that, the fact is the rebels, as you pointed out in ajdabiya have come back, so on the eastern side of libya, the cities all seem to be lined up with the rebels. on the western side in misrata, the gadhafi people are trying to take that so they at least have all of that side of the country. and in the meanwhile, we re saying that we re going to back off of the no-fly zone or talk a
captions paid for by nbc-universal television good morning. the president will address the nation about u.s. involvement in libya tomorrow night in response to calls for him to clarify the u.s. mission there. meanwhile, day nine of u.s. and allied air strikes libya as rebel forces advance and manage to take control of the stra teen ick city of auj taub area in eastern libya, a celebration by rebels there yesterday. opposition forces have now made their way from benghazi, their strojhold, to the port town of brega, overtaking gadhafi forces there, both victories a clearer sign the air strikes are helping rebels advance. let s go to ajdabiya where richard angle joins us this morning for the very latest. richard, what does that advance by the rebels, who are behind you in this shot, say ultimately about the u.s. and allied mission in libya?
of the burden. this was the conversation he had with foreign leaders when this whole thing was coming together, and so we see our commitment of resources actually beginning to how long does the no-fly zone last? first of all, nobody knows the answer to that question, but once the air defenses have been suppressed, what it takes to sustain the no-fly zone is substantially less than what it takes to establish. still on the military, let me ask this. what in things don t go as well? ha is our contingency plan, what is the u.s. commitment if things get worse in libya? if gadhafi stays, if there s an entrenched civil war? the president made clear there will be no american troops on the ground in libya. he s made that quite definite. our air power has significantly degraded his armor capabilities, his ability to use his armor against cities like benghazi. we see them beginning to move back to the west, retreating.