happened in libya and this is happening in many third world countries unfortunately. i am the man who believes in the process. again there are going to be some people who hear your comments and i want you to be able to respond to what they think. they re going to think for years you have made excuses for this regime, you have been the face of the regime in the united states. do you regret anything you have done up to now? i regret nothing. because i m always working for the interest of the people. and always promoting the relation between libya, and i want libyan people to get benefits. but you took your orders from gadha gadhafi? gadhafi doesn t give orders to us, to be honest to you. but he s the this man is a dictator who rules the country with his son? we have some differences of the way the things have been
born? that s something being negotiated right now especially as americans and europeans are just now figuring out who exactly they ve been supporting the past several weeks and months. so far it s really not a pretty picture. if you even just look at this, you see the head of the military council, he was a former leae[ of the libyan islamic fighting group, tightly associated with al qaeda, with even named by al zawahiri in afghanistan, fought in afghanistan, this is a very prominent figure with the rebel opposition camp, and the concern here is that the fall of gadhafi, if and when that happens, is going to create a major political vacuum in the country that islami isist milit can exploit. one of the things i m worried about, the weapons stockpiles gadhafi had in various parts of the country and the fear that stuff could get because of
u.s. allieallies. while they don t like gadhafi and are supportive of action to help the rebels, they are nervous about seeing a precedent in which a domestic conflict in which a government is trying to stop a rebellion is triggering an international response. gadhafi doesn t have many friends in the region, is alienating the arab league. they called for international against him. but a lot of people in the region don t want to see france, the united states intervening potentially militarily whenever there is a domestic dispute. clearly in libya itself in benghazi in particular, the reaction has been one of overwhelming support and they want the air strikes to begin on gadhafi s forces tonight. richard engel, what exactly are we talking about, a no fly zone or air strikes on gadhafi s forces? a no fly zone meaning they will
the roads. far fewer cars than there would be normally. i think these are the indications, much more psychological indications than physical. gadhafi doesn t have a huge military presence in the city at his palace compounds, at the military air base, at the east of the city, but it s not a city that has anti-aircraft guns on the roofs, as per baghdad did during in 2003. in 1991, it s not that kind of militarized capital in that way. all right. thank you, nic robertson. joining us to discuss the mission in libya from cambridge, massachusetts, is senior political analyst david gergen. david, how do you assess the situation as of this moment where we seem to be hearing from the u.s. military, we rule the airwaves, we have accomplished our military objective in terms of creating a no-fly zone but don t seem yet, and certainly it s only four days in, to be cracking gadhafi s will to fight back. and if the objective is to have him leave office, are we getting closer to that? i think
[ automatic gunfire ] now, the video claims to be from today on the streets of misurata. we cannot independently confirm that is what you are seeing. if, in fact, it is true, that would be in violation of the cease-fire that the gadhafi regime says they have been honoring. one resident telling us from misurata, and you re going to hear in the hour ahead, he said gadhafi doesn t want to take the town, he wants to destroy it. this man says gadhafi won t stop unless somebody stops him. president obama says if nobody does, there s every reason to believe that gadhafi would commit atrocities and demanded that the gadhafi regime obey the u.n. resolution. let me be clear, these terms