that kept him in power for four decades and wealthy too. a wikileaks analysis says he could have over $30 billion and such is the leader of libya who eliminated all ranks above colonel after naming himself colonel moammar gadhafi. fascinating stuff. thank you, richard. i want to bring in michael elliott. one of the last journalists to sit down with gadhafi in recent years. it s when that tent was erected he gave this big teach. who was the moammar gadhafi you saw then? he was a pretty unusual intervi interviewee. i don t think i have ever seen anyone quite like him. he could focus. he could concentrate when he wanted to get a message across he could do that. there were times when he just kind of went off on a really bizarre ramble. of course his dress was particularly unusual.
confident in the u.s. economy right now. this will have impact on plane tickets, tourism, and i think in broad strokes women. women are such controllers of consumer spending in the united states. 80% of consumer purchases in the u.s. are controlled by women. women are conservative. i think that this is very dicey for our u.s. economy which is why i believe that treasury, state and defense are working hand in glove together with the president on this issue. you obviously ivillage with women all the time. what s your take on that? it s so interesting. these stories don t necessarily resonate right at first. there is some talk about egypt. some talk about libya. once you start talking about the pocketbook and gas prices and can we go on vacation and you talk about transportation, flights, when you talk about i want to be to the grocery store why is my bill twice as much as it was before and just as economic engine started to feel like it was chugging a little
wikileaks released earlier this week. one of them described him as a skillful politician who has manipulated local rivals and his own sons so he could remain in power. that same cable also said the unholy alliance of corruption and cult of personality politics on which the system has been based is ultimately limiting. is that what we re seeing here do you think? i think what we can clearly see is factions in libya. both within the family and outside of the family. we know there are huge rivalries within the family between some of the sons and we know also that there are tribes who are great rivals among themselves. libya should be a pretty rich place. it doesn t have a particularly large population between 6 million and 7 million. it has oodles of oil and gas. it s someone that should be enormously rich. he s the one who are the one question people will focus on in the next few months is where s the money? and i suspect that s going to be
broad. people are talking about reintroducing sanctions or a no-fly zone so they can t put helicopters and warships up there to fire on their own people. should the u.s. do more at this point? i think the u.s. is doing plenty behind the scenes. we don t know about it as front page news. i would venture to guess that there is quite a bit of conversation going on between the state department, defense department and the treasury department because as you say, this is a situation where economic policy globally is at play, which is linked to foreign policy, u.s. foreign policy. this is not just about global economic impact but this will have profound impact on the u.s. here at home. let s remember, two-thirds of the world s oil goes through libya. that s in the backyard of libya. and when you think about it, impact that will have we saw it happen in the asian stock market yesterday and today on the u.s. stock market. people are not feeling 100%
way the secretary of defense might be, we might end up seeing things deteriorate there and gadhafi have to go or be overthrown. but if the power center stays behind gadhafi, maybe he can hang on at least for the short run. now, in the long run i think we re seeing an overall bubbling up in the middle east that we certainly hope is going to be positive in the long run and bring more democratic processes to the middle east. lisa, your former boss secretary of state hillary clinton had this to say. let me play a clip on her take of the deteriorating situation in libya. this bloodshed is completely unacceptable. it is the responsibility of the government of libya to respect the universal rights of their own people. words but the question now is should there be deeds. you have americans within libya who are fearful for their lives. we talked to some of them yesterday. you have a situation where the economic impact could be very