White House Disputes Predictions That Gadhafy Will Crush Rebels
Top U.S. intelligence officials said Thursday they expect that Moammar Gadhafy will continue his bloody fight for survival and eventually crush the rebels and opposition groups that now hold almost half of Libya. But the White House sharply disputed that assessment, and is sending Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to meet with the rebels on the Egyptian border next week. The dueling assessments of Gadhafy's fortunes emerged as the Obama administration turned aside growing demands that it take more concerted action, including military steps, to bring down the Libyan dictator and end ...
Gadhafy Will Prevail Over Rebels, U.S. Intelligence Officials Say
Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafy is determined to crush the popular uprising against him and has the weapons to do it, top U.S. intelligence officials said Thursday. While the fighting rages back and forth between rebels and Gadhafy's forces, the regime has a clear advantage in weapons and logistics. "Over the long term he will prevail," said James R. Clapper, director of national intelligence, who represents the best collective assessments of all U.S. intelligence agencies. The anti-Gadhafy rebels received a jolt of support Thursday, receiving formal diplomatic recognition from France. But ...
82nd Airborne Quick-Strike Force Gives Obama New Option in Mideast Crises
FORT BRAGG, N.C. -- As revolution zigzags chaotically across the Middle East and North Africa, the U.S. Army is sharpening its readiness to launch rapid-reaction, kick-in-the-door combat forces, adding capabilities and skills that had atrophied during a decade of counterinsurgency missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. For the first time in years, the 82nd Airborne Division here has stood up its "ready brigade," trained to a razor's edge and poised to move instantly, as one of its paratroopers said, "to the sound of the guns." This new capability gives President Obama the option to swiftly land ...
U.S. Military Readies Libya Options -- With Caution
FORT BRAGG, N.C. -- Officials looking at options for U.S. military intervention in Libya are recalling the lessons of Somalia, where American troops were sent to help feed starving children and 15 months later were evacuated ahead of howling mobs that then sacked the U.S. Embassy. Forty-two Americans were killed in combat and dozens were injured. Today in Somalia, an al-Qaeda franchise holds power. Lesson No. 1, planners say: Beware the Law of Unintended Consequences. The spreading chaos in Libya and the bloody stalemate between rebels and defiant remnants of Moammar Gadhafi's regime have ...
In Libya's Escalating Chaos, an Opening for al-Qaeda?
In yet another bizarre outburst, embattled Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi is claiming that Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda are behind the uprisings across Libya, an absurd assertion given the breadth of the popular demonstrations and the protesters' demand for political freedoms. But U.S. and international counterterrorism officials aren't laughing. Al-Qaeda already has a foothold in Libya -- albeit a small one -- along with another armed radical Islamist organization. And the growing chaos across Libya could be the perfect medium to trigger an explosive growth of Islamist extremism, some ...
President Obama to Libya's Moammar Gadhafi: 'The Violence Must Stop'
Global condemnation of the increasingly violent regime of Moammar Gadhafi gives the United States a green light to intervene against the Libyan dictator, and President Obama Wednesday asked his top national security staff to draw up a list of options. They could range from armed U.S. combat air patrols to shut down Gadhafi's military operations to freezing Gadhafi's bank accounts and other punitive sanctions. In his first public response to the Libyan crisis since Friday, Obama said the "suffering and bloodshed is outrageous and is unacceptable.'' And echoing past commanders-in-chief who ...
Four American Sailors Shot Dead by Somali Pirates
Four Americans on a sailing vacation were shot and killed by Somali pirates Tuesday in the north Arabian Sea, despite a last-second rescue effort by a team of U.S. Navy commandos. Their yacht, the Quest, a 58-foot sailing vessel, was seized by 19 pirates Feb. 18, and was being shadowed by four U.S. Navy warships. Two of the pirates were aboard the USS Sterrett and engaged in negotiations when their cohorts aboard the yacht fired a rocket-propelled grenade at the warship, and gunfire broke out among the pirates aboard the sailboat, said Navy Vice Adm. Mark I. Fox, commander of the U.S. 5th ...
Amid Chaos in Libya, Gadhafi Vows to 'Die Here as a Martyr'
Vowing to "die here as a martyr,'' Libya's mercurial strongman, Moammar Gadhafi, said he would fight to the end to stay in power, even as violence spread, major cities were abandoned by security forces and came under the control of pro-democracy demonstrators, and senior Libyan diplomats were calling for the dictator to step down. "I shall remain here defiant," Gadhafi insisted in a TV speech Tuesday. Calling the protesters tools of the Americans, Gadhafi said he would give them until Wednesday to disband. After that, he said, he would set security forces on them, and activists would be ...
The Afghanistan War: Tactical Victories, Strategic Stalemate?
The top commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David Petraeus, likes to describe the tactical gains his troops are making against insurgents. But a stream of independent data and analysis suggests a wide gap between those battlefield gains and the strategic progress needed to convince a skeptical President Obama, Congress and the public to stay with the war effort for at least three more years. Recently, for instance, Petraeus asserted that his forces "achieved what we set out to achieve in 2010, which was to reverse the insurgency momentum.'' He has said that Taliban insurgents "are losing momentum ...
Egypt's Democracy Uprising: Protests Continue, but Is It Over?
Massive protests continued in Cairo's Tahrir Square Tuesday in the drive to shatter the repressive rule of President Hosni Mubarak. But after 15 days of demonstrations, the regime, backed by the powerful and disciplined army, seemed more entrenched than ever. The spontaneous and largely peaceful opposition has sparked hope around the world that a new wave of democracy was at last sweeping the Arab world's autocracies. But even as tens of thousands of Egyptians jammed into the square Tuesday -- the size of the crowd carefully controlled by army checkpoints -- it looked increasingly as if the ...
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