on this and ambivalent. i think a lot of people are ambivalent. dana, some are for it. some are against it. john mccain was for the no-fly zone. then he said we did it too late. now he says we should characterize gadhafi like hussien. there is a lot of the convolution on it. there is a lot of lack of communication on the mission in libya. i hope to hear from the president tonight. cornell was mentioning two things i would like to hear. what sort of time line can we expect from libya? if we ever needed a time frame for military conflict, now is the time. especially when you have the leader of the transition council
i think that is a risk we take. we know there are a lot of good people in there. people educated in the west. some who professed a desire to put in western-style democracy. we know some are strong believers in a religious role in government. and religious values in government. some who believe in secular values. we also know that from eastern libya, a large number of young men went during the years 2003 to 2007, 2008, they went to iraq and they fought americans in iraq for al qaeda. a lot of these people were killed. maybe some of them came back. maybe they are fighting against gadhafi. we re not sure. so that s disturbing what you just said. yeah. yeah. secretary clinton, she says no decision has been made on whether we should arm these libyan rebels with all of what you said in mind, should the united states or the coalition arm these rebels? i think the most important thing right now is that we put in the assistance that s required to help them form a
giving them a brief on what s going on. what is still going on up to date. and what you ll see for the u.s. now is more of a focus on a few areas. surveillance. flying that global hawk very high in the air to get eyes on the ground. you ll see a lot more when you think about some of the strikes. the strikes on gadhafi s forces. that s primarily where the u.s. is going to be concentrated. surveillance, jamming electronics and going after these individual strikes. they ve already moved out of the area of just patrolling the no-fly zone. all of that right now already being handled by the coalition partners. chris lawrence, live at the pentagon. many thanks. the white house is defending its military action in libya, but admits that the north african country posed no threat to americans. here s what secretary of defense robert gates said about the administration s decision to launch air strikes. secretary gates, is libya in our vital interest as a country?