other nations, italy are now involved, canada, gives us the kind of cover we did not have in 2003 against saddam hussein? well, i think we did have cover. let me ask you this, geraldo, who is in charge? geraldo: that is an excellent question. i think we are and i think that we will continue to be even if we very publicly give over command to some nonamerican command. that is what worries me. you can t run this kind of operation politically or militarily by committee and the logical order of battle here is for the united states to be in command. that does not seem to be what the president wants, number one. number two, he keeps saying that his objective is protection of the libyan people. geraldo: let s get number two on the ear sid [ male announcer ] to the 5:00 a. scholar. the two trains and a bus rider. the i ll sleep when it s done academic.
chiefs of staff. thank you so much for being with us. thanks for having me. jamie: what a day. it seems like the plan for the u.s. has changed, although the president has said no ground troops, we have to enforce a no-fly zone and protect citizens on the the ground. what do you see as on the table? well, i think, you know, obviously, we ll be using the missiles we were just hearing about and looking at the radar sites, taking out aircraft as well as possibly tanks and other vehicles. the real question, not so much can we do it? they have old outdated technology and we have excellent order of battle and truly, truly exceptional equipment and the issues are this is hastily thrown together and as secretary of defense gates said recently, this is an act of war, it takes time to plan these things and frankly, the u.s. military is stretched pretty thin right now. so we re biting off quite a bit more. the issue is not can we do this can we do it for a day, a week, but a year, five years
airplanes. but so far the cease-fire hasn t happened and, arguably, gadhafi is in violation now and the u.s. and its allies can use force. how vulnerable is he? we just learned four new york times journalists who disappeared covering the conflict in libya have been found. they were reportedly captured by troops that were loyal to moammar gadhafi. if he s capturing journalists how much credibility can we give him when he says, oh, but we have implemented a cease-fire? i don t think anybody will give any credibility to what he says. but certainly our military satellites, our intelligence capabilities are perfectly able to determine whether gadhafi s forces have stopped firing, have gone into a cessation of hostility. during the course of the day intelligence analysts in the pentagon and cia are going to be making a judgment, providing that judgment to the president, hopefully before 2:00, about whether we see changes in their order of battle and how they re
the president is acting outside of the authority of the constitution. there is no question about that whatsoever. a decision was made to take c crew of rebels and turn it into a fighting force and make a america forces into a war. he didn t consult with congress serious run on tripoli? and that s a matter of fact. now what the consequences are reporter: that person has yet politically, you know, we ll to emerge. see. well, welcome back to hardball. i guess here in libya it would that was ohio congressman dennis be their national hero. that person hasn t come forward. the rebels don t really even kucinich today on msnbc. know who their commanders are. communications are very poor. cell phones barely work. they don t have specific orders or even tactics. unless someone emerges, a strong unifying figure, it seems to be republicans think president a very haphazard approach following where american and hasn t acted quickly or strongly enough. other military strikes have been and rebel
unifying figure, it seems to be a very haphazard approach following where american and other military strikes have been and rebels creep forward to see if they can advance territory. let s talk about the western command and efforts by allies, french, american and british fighter pilots or bombers and tomahawk missiles. the fighting tonight, what has been going on? what s the order of battle? what do we have in the fight right now from the western side? reporter: well, what we ve seen is mostly the evidence. it s difficult to know on the ground what exactly has been fired. we know that tomahawk missiles have been fired. we know there have been american fighghter jetsts in the e air. most of the attacks have been on two main targets, the army units anane armored artillery and