coalition effort the u.s. is bearing the brunt of the load at this point. thanks so much. chris lawrence at the pentagon. the u.s. and its allies have reached an agreement of command of the libyan military operation enforcing a no-fly zone. nato will take charge in the next couple of days, but what else will up happen? joining me now is retired army brigadier general mark bennett. he hold posts in the defense and state department. thank you for being here. paula nut fon in brussels at nato said they call it a no-fly plus. can you interpret that? what does that mean? i think what they mean is that the nato authorities are going to try to push the mission beyond simply of that of the no-fly. they have the authority to take over the no-fly, but they recognize this is pretty complicated to have the headquarters running the humanitarian protection mission, and the nato headquarters running the no-fly. i think they re trying to build a little bit of flexibility so when the politicians ca
it was very clear when the nato secretary-general said, we ve got the no-fly. we don t have the humanitarian mission. they just can t take over the humanitarian mission. it s a work in progress? it s a work in progress. they have to be authorized to conduct military planning in nato. they seem to have the authority to do that future planning before the political decision is made. it can be an ugly process. it s a complicated process, but nato has done great work over the past 60 years. i suspect it s going to do great work here as well. we can t reinforce enough that it s a 28-0 agreement. every nation must be on board for anything to happen. as a former nato ambassador, it s an consensus organization, there are no abstentions, 28-0. painful politics to get down. thanks for being with us. glad to be here. ahead, at least 34 dead and thousands moirned during funerals today in syria part of the latest round of violence in the middle east, and new
gadhafi s ground forces. we have taken on responsibility for the no-fly zone while the coalition still continues its activities. we are considering whether we should take on that broader responsibility. however, that decision has not been made yet. to help us interpret this paula newton is at nato headquarters in bell ygium. the nato secretary-general said that nato will enforce the no-fly zone, but a decision is still yet to be made on the broader mission. so what does that really mean? what it means is this. they call this here no-fly plus. the no-fly will be in place by sunday night. the plus means an expanded role. they sent a directive saying how can we involved in a new robust
frightening. the president can make a decision. conflicting messages within the administration. they can t define what the actual mission is. now he s got the left wing of his own party . which tells me the president is going to try to bail out as soon as he can. france and great britain leading the way any way. your thoughts? i have a column on this on my website that i just wrote. the powell doctrine is the one we should follow in this situation. which says, first we need to avoid mission creep. second, we need to have clear objective. thirdly, before you go in, you need an exit strategy. he has failed on all three counts. we ve already had mission creep. this was sold as a no-fly zone to stop qadhafi s air force from attacking rebels and killing civilians. now it has gone way beyond that we are bombing his armor and striking his armed forces nothing to do with no-fly. secondly, they said our goal
frightening. the president can make a decision. conflicting messages within the administration. they can t define what the actual mission is. now he s got the left wing of his own party . which tells me the president is going to try to bail out as soon as he can. france and great britain leading the way any way. your thoughts? i have a column on this on my website that i just wrote. the powell doctrine is the one we should follow in this situation. which says, first we need to avoid mission creep. second, we need to have clear objective. thirdly, before you go in, you need an exit strategy. he has failed on all three counts. we ve already had mission creep. this was sold as a no-fly zone to stop qadhafi s air force from attacking rebels and killing civilians. now it has gone way beyond that we are bombing his armor and striking his armed forces nothing to do with no-fly. secondly, they said our goal was to protect civilians.