Thursday, March 24, 2011

To The Shores Of Tripoli, Part 7

NATO confirms they will take over the operation of Libya's no-fly zone from the US over the weekend.

NATO has reached an agreement to take over the no-fly zone in Libya from the United States "in a couple of days," NATO's secretary general said Thursday.


"NATO has now decided to enforce the no-fly zone over Libya. We're taking action as part of the broad international effort to protect civilians," Anders Fogh Rasmussen told CNN's Wolf Blitzer. "We will cooperate closely with our partners in the region and welcome their contributions."

NATO is considering enforcing a wide range of measures called for by the U.N. Security Council resolution on Libya, including the protection of civilians from Gadhafi's ground forces, Rasmussen said.

Military authorities will decided which country will take the initial lead using the "already established chain of command," Rasmussen said.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton confirmed this evening that this will happen, so that's one major objection that I had to Odyssey Dawn that's been resolved.   Here's what bugs me about that plan however:

All 28 NATO allies have authorized military authorities to develop a plan for NATO to take on the broader mission of civilian protection under U.N. Resolution 1973, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Thursday. Clinton said she will travel to London to attend an international meeting on Libya on Tuesday.

At some point, the broader mission to "protect civilians" will have to include some sort of ground force, just a matter of who is going in.

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