see, well, those guys are doing okay. then that begins to raise questions in people s minds. so there are a couple of ways we can do this, with but it requires a lot of international cooperation and a will to do it. and jim miklaszewski thinks there s probably street gangs in the united states that are better organized and better command and control in the rebels in libya. and i even read a report that says they re hoping there are retired western soldiers, ie, guys who used to be in the american army, who would be willing for pay to lead libyan rebels. let me ask you about these other middle east hot spots. syrian, libya. how likely is it that you see an overthrow government? in libya, president saleh is looking very, very vulnerable. the major tribes have deserted h him, elements of the military, including his half-brother, who s very powerful, have deserted him. the street protests continue. he looks extremely vulnerable. and the u.s. needs to worry about that, because that is a
encounters with other countries in which you say we re holding your coat or we don t object to what you re up to. good morning, it s 8:00 a.m. on the east coast as you take a live look at new york city. i m in dallas, mika is in the south of france. mike barnicle, harold ford jr. and the great willie geist, in washington, d.c., patrick buchanan and andrea mitchell. pat buchanan, we couldn t get the french to fight for years, and now it seems they re moving ahead of us. they wanted to go there first and apparently reports today that the british and americans very upset that the french went ahead without us. and did more than we expected. apparently that s right, joe. sarkozy walked out of that meeting and announced the french planes were already attacking in libya. i guess that s a big deal for him in paris, he s in trouble for his re-election. but there s no real apparent coordination.
gadha gadhafi. really? we are bombing the compound where his home is. it looks like it s expanded far beyond what the president originally told us what it is going to be. this is not strictly the enforcement of a no-fly zone. it s well beyond that. truth be told, we want to target moammar gadhafi, don t you think with the sophistication of our army we could have targeted it more precisely? no, we don t have the intelligence on the ground to know where he is. we have that technology and capability. mike allen, we appreciate it. have a great week. we want to go to libya. joining us now, richard engel. good to see you. we have heard now reports this morning that the first phase, the first objective for the
in libya. and elizabeth, we read that the headline reports that the united states objective is near. reading, though, your update on the plane crash this morning online, elizabeth, it looks like one of our main objectives is turning controlling command over to our european allies as quickly as possible? that s right. pentagon is. reporter: eager to extract itself from a third conflict in a muslim country and is moving as quickly as possible. that said, there s a lot of dispute among the allies about who should take over this command. where it should be conducted from and it s not sorted out yet. i should also say that despite the positive headline, that s a very narrow objective we re talking about which is a in pno zone and taking out gadhafi s air defenses.
with every broad brush, they re all different, egypt different than libya and in this case the feeling among senior pentagon and military officials was, as bad as it was in terms of gadhafi s actions, it was in response to what essentially was an armed politico rebellion and a threat to his regime. now i m not the last thing i m doing is zenlding gadhafi here. but you can see the difference and why, perhaps, people here were he sitant to jump into thi. let s go to jamie rubin. you were adamant that the united states needed to get in there. after speaking with you the president made the decision the get involved in libya. did the president do it the right way? well, in terms of the politics of this, i think as you