NATO Showing Strain Over Approach to Libya
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BERLIN -- NATO's foreign ministers, showing the strains of fighting two wars at once, tried to play down divisions over the intensity of the air campaign against Libya on Thursday, urging patience and resolve as the alliance carried out what one official called "a significant level" of attacks on Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi's forces.
"As our mission continues, maintaining our resolve and unity only grows more important," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said, responding to the unusually public divisions among NATO leaders over a military operation now nearly a month old. "Qaddafi is testing our determination."
As if to prove the point, Libya's state television showed Colonel Qaddafi riding through the capital, Tripoli, in an open-top sport utility vehicle. Presumably he did so in defiance of new NATO strikes there on Thursday, although NATO officials have said repeatedly that they are only defending civilians, and that the Libyan leader is not a target.
In an opinion article published Friday in The International Herald Tribune, three of the coalition's senior leaders -- President Obama, Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France -- said their nations were "united on what needs to happen" to end the turmoil in Libya.
NATO will continue to protect civilians, they wrote. And while the coalition's mandate does not include removing Colonel Qaddafi by force, they said, "It is impossible to imagine a future for Libya with Qaddafi in power."
The leaders said in the article, which also appeared in The Times of London and Le Figaro, that as long as Colonel Qaddafi was in power, "NATO must maintain its operations so that civilians remain protected and the pressure on the regime builds."
NATO leaders meeting in Berlin also said they were united in forcing Libya's military to end its assaults on civilians in rebellious cities -- and ultimately in forcing Colonel Qaddafi to leave power -- but rifts remained over how to accomplish those goals.
Only 14 of the alliance's 28 members are actively participating in the operation -- joined by other nations like Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Sweden -- and only 6 of those are striking targets on the ground in Libya. That has prompted France and Britain in particular to call for an intensification of the war effort by more allies.
First Published April 15, 2011 12:01 am
