>> what you hear, shouts of god is great while others say, quote the blood of the martyrs will not be in vain. the camera tilts down, you see it there the head of gadhafi. wounds on his face, including a gunshot wound in the forehead. officials of the nur lew libyan government said he died of shotgun wounds to the head. suggests he deserves some credit for gadhafi's demise. >> our brave pilots have flown in libya's skies. our sailors provided support off libya's shores. and our leadership at nato has helped guide our coalition. without putting a single u.s. service member on the ground, we achieved our objectives, and our nato mission will soon come to an end. >> i'm john king in washington. we'd like to welcome viewers not only here in the united states but around the world. we consider the fallout of the breaking news, death of moammar gadhafi. there are many important unanswered questions tonight, including just how did gadhafi die. did his ruthless son saif die with him? the impact on the fast changing middle east in north africa. consider this, wildly popular online, across the arab world. red xs crossing out deposed dictators of tunisia, egypt. saleh waiting his turn. after two months on the run, what we know about his final minutes. we must warn you, again, some of these images are gruesome. footage aired on al arabiya shows a wounded but live gadhafi being dragged around by his hometown by armed men. gadhafi's corpse, a gunshot wound to the side of the head. transitional government announced the death and labeled today's libya's real day of liberation. dan rivers in tripoli tonight, and, dan what can you tell us is the reporting continues to flow in on gadhafi's final moments? >> reporter: well, the ntc are putting out their side of the story, claiming that gadhafi, as you saw in that footage you just show there, john, he was alive when first captured, injured about alive. they say he was shot in the arm, because live. trying to take him to hospital when he was -- the vehicle he was in was caught in the cross fire between pro and anti-gadhafi forces, and at that point it was -- he was shot through the head, we don't know who by, but caught in the cross fire, they say, and died shortly before he arrived at hospital. they are desperate to contradict the other reports circulating and speculation here that he may have been executed by some of the ntc forces. there were earlier reports suggesting that some of the forces had shot him with his own golden gun. they are putting out this story saying, no, he was caught in the k cross fire, trying to take him to hospital, they wanted him alive but he died before he got to hospital, having been shot in the head by a stray bullet. >> dan, help our viewers understand the significance of the government rushing to try to get that story out, in the sense that you see celebrations in the street. i assume many libyans are happy the dictator's dead, regards of the circumstances. but there are some in libya and around the world who wanted him brought to justice. i assume there are still some in libya who support him and would view an execution as a gross offense by the new government. >> reporter: that's right. i think, you know, there are several points here that you know the new government has been criticized severely with the way it's treating detainees, low-level detainees but nevertheless, amnesty, human rights, other human rights groups have criticized the way they've been dealing with detainees. if it transpired that their own forces had executed most prized detainee of all, colonel gadhafi that would be a further blow to them. you're right there are people here we have spoken to who wanted to see gadhafi on trial. they wanted to hear him held to account and answer the questions about the brutal treatment that he meted out on the country for 42 years. now their chance of justice, of trying to explain and cross-examine gadhafi has been taken away. the ntc claim it was sheer misfortune, other reports that were circulating earlier suggesting that he was deliberately killed by the ntc. >> critical reporting by dan rivers. as you just heard, how exactly did gadhafi die? that's not entirely clear. we know nato alliance reports it fired on a pro-gadhafi convoy trying to escape sirte and gadhafi was in one of the vehicles and likely wounded in that strike. let's get more from our pentagon correspondent, chris lawrence. what are your sources telling you tone? >> reporter: well, john, a senior defense official confirms that a combined nato strike did hit a pro-gadhafi convoy earlier this morning. they say it was a combination of french fighter jets and a predator drone firing hellfire missiles, part of more than 400 times that the allies have dropped ordnance on libya during the last seven or eighth months dooring this campaign. also 145 predator drone strikes during this time. a nato official confirmed to us that moammar gadhafi was not killed in part of any strike on the convoy but that he was killed or died later, after being engages with the rebels. >> and, chris, one of the questions is the level of coordination. if there's a nato strike on the convoy and rebels show up moments later, and that's what happened, gadhafi hiding in a big tube, looks like a tunnel, a drainage ditch off the side of the highway, you see the pictures, that's where they found gadhafi, the question is coordination. is the coordination that good? nato says we're about to streak a convoy, transitional forces should get out there? >> it's been extremely close for some time now. in fact, you know, there's an ongoing battle with nato continuing to insist that its mission was one of protecting civilians, not overthrowing a government. and yet you did see very, very close, close air support, coor nation of car gtargeting and st missions between nato forces and the rebels on the ground. this has been going on for some time that nato has been cooperating with the rebels on the ground closely. >> chris lawrence, live with breaking news. nato secretary-general says libya can, quote, turn over a new page and adds with the fall of gadhafi's strongholds, the end of nato mission is close at hand. so what next? u.s. senator john mccain an early advocate of using force to push gadhafi from power and recently visited the country to confer with leaders of the transitional government. live from capitol hill. i want to start with your information. you've heard reports, gadhafi taken alive, then killed, you see the gunshot wound to the head when you look at the photos. the transitional government says in a cross fire. have you heard any information that leads you to question that, think perhaps someone who took him into custody might have executed him? >> i don't know, john. but in pursuant to the conversation you just had, i would have liked to have seen him in the criminal court because the guy has been guilty of numerous crimes, including the blood of americans on his hands because of the bombing of pan am 103, the disco in germany, you know, the list goes on and on. but i don't have any more information than you do on how he died, and done think anybody does, either. >> i want to talk about the security situation and your recent visit there. you made a very important point. as we talk about it and report the details of the death of gadhafi, it is important to remember for many people around the world this is personal because of this man's crimes over the years. brian flynn, the brother of a lockerbie victim, j.p. flynn, he wrote this on cnn.com today. rather than wanting to see the kind of freak show snuff film of gadhafi worming its way through the internet as i write this, i would have far preferred to watch him from a front row seat in the hague as he, in true milosevic style, would have been made to answer for his countless, hideous crimes. it is a shame, senator, it is a shame, no one's going to miss gadhafi. but people in his own country, put to death and buried in mass graves, people around the world, whether berlin, pan am 103 killed business hi terrorists will never get all of the answers. >> that's right. the more exposure that these kinds of people get at the hague, the more lessons are learned and the more impression it makes on people. but it is what it is, and i'd like to congratulate the administration. they helped out enormously. i think that they deserve great credit. i think greater credit goes to our british and french allies who really were leaders. i wish we had used the full weight of american air power and wouldn't have had so many casualties, but the fact is that this is -- this is another success for the obama administration and there was close coordination, as you mentioned between nato air and people on the ground, which weren't always libyans. >> i want to ask you about the situation on the ground now. some 20,000 surface-to-air missiles unaccounted for, other weapons, including mustard gas that gadhafi promised to troy but hadn't yet, what is your level of confidence in the transitional government to fine that stuff and keep it out of the hand of the bad guys and willingness to anow we have more sophisticated intelligence operations? now that they don't need us anymore, to take gadhafi out, are you worried that they will not allow us to find that stuff? >> i'm not worried at all. they're very grateful to us, john. this is our chance, not only to send in people to secure these weapons so they don't fall into the wrong hands, though apparently there's already a substantial amount missing, but the best thing we can do right now is to announce that we are helping the libyans care for their wounded. they have some 30,000 wounded, we could say we're flying them to landstuhl, our military hospital in germany, we could send a hospital ship to sit there in the harbor in tripoli and help care for these wounded. they're overwhelmed, health care facilities by the wounded. remember, it's a small country. we have to get the militias under the control of the transition national council government. they are not now, and this is a very critical time to get that to happen, and then i guess also we have to make sure that the abuses don't take place of the detainees and the geneva conventions are adhered to in the prisons. >> you had very kind words for the president of the united states about the administration's role in this. that was kind of you. i want you to listen to the president today. as we watch this in the wake of tunisia, egypt, gadhafi is not only out of power but dead, what message does this send to saleh in yemen, assad in syria? listen to the president of the united states. >> the rule of an iron fist inevitably comes to an end. across the arab world citizens stood up to claim their rights, youth delivering a powerful rebuke to dictatorship and leaders that try to deny their dignity will not succeed. >> any evidence that this could topple assad, any evidence that iran, which many say is stronger in the region today than a few months ago, will be influenced by this? >> i think every nation in the world is influenced by it. i think it's -- we should take the word arab out of spring. putin is less comfortable in his position today. i think the chinese even are less comfortable. i think something sweeping the globe. we may be left completely untouched because there is great dissatisfaction out there, by the way i'm not predicting anything more than what we may be seeing today, but look, people, thanks to social networking, thanks to a whole lot of the breeze of liberty and freedoms blowing around the world and i think it's one of the greatest and most transitional times in the history of the world, and we should be proud to lead it and to help. in the case of syria, look, assad has got to go but i don't know how you can intervene any more than we are in providing the kind of moral support and other support that is needed. each country and each one of these revolutions is different and has to be treated differently, as well. >> if there's someone around the world, an activist in syria, maybe iran who says, why not my country, the nato alliance helped in libya, is this a template for the future? what are the barriers, the red lines you can't cross? >> it is a template for the future. what do you do next? i'm worried about egypt. we've not seen a lot of the progress we want to see but i think they can succeed. elections coming up in tunisia, let's see what happens there. i'm optimistic there. libya, they've never known any kind of government other than what they experienced under gadhafi. there's tribal divisions and all of that. so we need to come in and help them establish the building blocks of democracy. there are ngos that helped out in former soviet union after the berlin wall fell. by the way, libya's a wealthy country and so it's not as if they're going to need financial assistance. so we can play a role of assistance and i think that america, i know for a fact from being in both benghazi and tripoli they like america, they appreciate the united states of america and they want to be like us. so let's not squander the opportunity. let's help them out. >> important words from senator john mccain on capitol hill, on the breaking news. thank you for your time. up next, more on the breaking news story including new details on the hunt for gadhafi. and here's the former libyan leader in his own words talking about democracy, if you believe that spoken in 2009 at the united nations. >> translator: democracy's not for the rich or for the one who terrorizes, for the one more powerful than us should have democracy, no. it should be the only nations at equal footing. 2 o0 [ be ] [ mom ] oote r? 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(laughing) yeah. get $100 rebate when you buy four tires. 100 bucks! only at your ford dealer. 3 million tires. 11 major brands, fiona's kind-of-nice. i don't know why you're not here. delivering mail, medicine and packages. yet they're closing thousands of offices, slashing service, and want to lay off over 100,000 workers. the postal service is recording financial losses, but not for reasons you might think. the problem ? a burden no other agency or company bears. a 2006 law that drains 5 billion a year from post-office revenue while the postal service is forced to overpay billions more into federal accounts. congress created this problem, and congress can fix it. too many here in the united states and around the world death of moammar gadhafi is personal. at the white house today president obama reflected on americans killed in a berlin disco bombed by the libyan agents under gadhafi's rule and those killed in pan am 103 and david cameron sounded a similar note, noting libya once supplied chemical explosives to the i.r.a. take a closer look at gadhafi's four decades in power. come over here, play this out, back in september 1969, richard nixon was the president of the united states, gadhafi launched a coup and took control of the country. then, in april 1986, this is when the disco bombing happened in berlin nightclub, killing three americans, injuring 299 others. reagan was the president of the united states then. listen to this. >> this mad dog of the middle east has a goal of a world revolution muslim fundamentalist revolution. >> mad dog of the middle east. that was ronald reagan back then. then we fast forward here. december 22, 1988, that is flight 103 lockerbie, 270 people killed. you see the devastation of the flight there. then in 2009, moammar gadhafi was trying to make amends with the world. visited the united states for the first time. 2003 he decided to give up his nuclear weapons program, allowed to visit the united nations and gave one of his legendary rambling speeches. >> democracy is not for the rich or for the one who terrorizes, the one who is more powerful than us should have democracdem no. >> everyone should have democrat circumstance something of course never, ever happened in libya. make that go away. bring this down. my apologies for that. march 2011, the beginning of operation odyssey dawn, to remove gadhafi from power, the united states and nato forces participating in that. today, october 20, 2011, history books record mow car gadhafi killed. is legacy? what now for the region? joining us, former homeland security adviser fran townsend, professor. nicholas burns, a research fellow with the new america foundation. fran, i want to talk you first someone who has met the man, the world will not miss him. but what is missing now that he will not be brought to justice? tell us more about who he was. >> you know i think, john, many people have said, i mean this was not a rational man to have a negotiation with. it was a very difficult conversation to have with him. and he had a very definite view of the world that was at times completely uninformed by the actual facts and reality. look, this is a man who so closely held power that it causes a vacuum, ntc will have to rise to that occasion. but there will be tribal differences, those pro-gadhafi loyalists who will melt into the population and you hope they don't come back but you can't be certain. we did see insurgency that formed in iraq after saddam was captured. and then, of course, there's the libyan islamic fighting group an affiliate of the al qaeda organization and you worry that extremists will try to infiltrate libya to take advantage of the vacuum left after gadhafi's gone. it's a terrific success today and it really -- this is an opportunity for the libyan people to have the democratic form of government that they've wanted. but they have real challenges as they go forward. >> you have reported extensively from libya. if you read many articles you have skepticism that the ntc, transitional council, is up to the task. have they made progress? better prepared now than they were when you first started reporting on this crisis? >> well, john, as you know, i was in libya for six months, and they have made some progress but the problem is they don't have discipline over military units. it's not clear how gadhafi died. whether he died in custody or from his wounds suffered from the battlefield and that's a big problem that the ntc has moving forward. it's going to have to impose discipline. the real problem that the ntc nas society, three factions in society, there's a die-hard gadhafi loyalists that we saw fight to the death, the libyan nationalists who appreciated gadhafi because he got rid of western influence and defied the west and fence sitters unsure of the revolution and the ntc needs to win over support of the second and third groups and not alienate the first group, and that's their big problems moving forward. >> nick burns, what about the world? criticism of the obama administration, people saying the president was leading from behind, he let the british and french and others take the lead in nato. president biden saying nato got it right. was this an isolated one-time incident? >> john, i think it might have been an isolate incident. they made the right decision to go into libya, without the nato air effort there would be no victory by the rebel alliance against the gadhafi forces, gadhafi would still be in power. i think president obama ought