Exit the Colonel (41 page)

Robert Gates, the sole senior Republican holdover from the Bush administration, continued, even after the launch of Operation Odyssey Dawn, to scoff at US interests in Libya, telling the
Wall Street Journal
that the country was “not a vital national interest of the United States,” and NBC's
Meet the Press
, “I don't think it's a vital interest of the United States, but we clearly have an interest there.”
⁵
Gates offered weak support for the mission already underway by couching US intervention as an assurance that a Libyan “civil war” would not destabilize Tunisia or Egypt.
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Gates, who previously held positions as interim director and then director of the CIA, was no stranger to previous and ongoing US military operations in the Middle East and knew more about Libya than most, given a direct role in drafting threat estimates supporting US action against Gaddafi in the late 1980s, under Reagan.
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Gates's primary interest, presumably, was in guarding American commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan, which any dramatic increase in US involvement in Libya would of course threaten.

Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN), the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, also not a newcomer to Libya issues (Lugar had been sent by George W. Bush to Tripoli in 2005 to effectively put a point on the 2003 deal with Gaddafi), amplified Gates's statements: “I personally don't think we should be engaged in a Libyan civil war.”
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Lugar, with Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) led a bipartisan group within Congress pressing the president on the War Powers Resolution.
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Explicit in the varied debates over intervention was the question of US national interests and some notion of both proportionality and consistency. Many pointed to what they saw as inconsistencies in Obama's approach to
Libya, with respect to a passive approach to uprisings in Bahrain or Syria. Obama ultimately predicated US intervention or support on moral and humanitarian grounds—the protection of Libyan civilians. One argument that was never articulated very strongly in the lead-up or even well into the NATO operations was that of the danger a wounded, exiled but not dead Gaddafi, with access to weapons, supporters, and large amounts of undisclosed liquid assets, could potentially do to US interests. After all, this was a regime that in the past had not hesitated to use lethal force against civilians in any number of guises. The State Department implicitly acknowledged this in announcements of continuing states of emergency with respect to US-Libya relations, both during and after the fighting was over:

For all the complex factors at play in the assembly and execution of operation Unified Protector and the White House's attempts to explain to the American people—and Congress—why the US was not more obviously out in front (it was cost effective, inclusive, put the fewest American lives in danger), and on the other hand, why the US was in the game to begin with, reviews of evolving US Libya policy and Obama's speech went from mixed to worse.

Opponents of the Libya intervention continued to insist the US had no firm, significant interests in Libya and had a field day with the unfortunate characterization by a State Department spokesman of US strategy as one of “leading from behind.” To many, this seemed to be a metaphor for indecision and even outright abdication of a US leadership role in Middle East policy. The Abu Dhabi–based
The National
called “leading from behind” a “paradoxical strategy of aggressive multilateralism, tempered by a deep sense of America's limitations,” with Obama as an “eloquent progenitor and paladin of American imperial decline.”
¹¹
Many proximate to the European decision-making process on Libya felt similarly: the French military journal
DSI
described the European contribution to the NATO
mission as “not reassuring,” as France and the UK seemed equally muddled over its ultimate objectives.
¹²

A number of commentators thought the policy, while eloquently put, simply would not work, as it left open any number of significant questions, from the need for an eventual ground force, conditions under which the UN might be engaged, to who would effect an eventual reconstruction, should Gaddafi be deposed.
New York Times
columnist Thomas Friedman, while acknowledging he had little knowledge of Libya, said Obama's speech was well phrased and “sincere,” but it was “naïve to think that we can be humanitarians only from the air.”
¹³
There appeared to be a contradiction between White House statements that “Gaddafi must go” and the failure to field sufficient force to get rid of him if he refused.

Even in France and the UK, where the Libyan operation received favorable public opinion, analysts questioned the long-term objectives and the decision-making methods. Sarkozy was taken to task for his “evasion” and lax decision-making process. The respected French military journal
DSI
opined:

Others argued NATO had quickly surpassed the mandate given by UN Resolution 1973 and called into question the ethics of a NATO-rebel collaboration, in which the rebels were effectively telling NATO “what targets to hit.”
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A common question from journalists would be, how could NATO be assured civilians would be “definitively protected,” as long as Gaddafi was in power?

Even as these debates were raging in Western capitals, many Libyans (still in Tripoli at the time) continued to insist they were “elated” by the NATO bombings and in fact were worried on nights when they did not hear the sorties.
¹⁶
Within Tripoli, people in neighboring houses erupted in cheers whenever they heard flights and explosion of ordinance, telling themselves it was “one less day” until Gaddafi's ouster, despite the obvious physical danger to themselves.
¹⁷
A poll conducted after the revolution confirmed resounding popular support for NATO action, in spite of US and EU doubts.
¹⁸

What many in the East referred to as a “motivational divide” between east and the west (meaning, mainly, Tripoli) was clear from almost the beginning. Eastern Libya was effectively autonomous by February 23. Once a center of power was defined there, eastern rebels held their own against loyalist forces for many months, particularly as Gaddafi focused on reabsorbing, with considerable casualties, other defecting regions. The retaking of western strongholds like Zawiya, Zwara, and Misurata, and pockets in the western Jebel Nafusa were each particularly violent.

In the east, the attitude toward Tripoli appeared initially to be one of sympathy, as word trickled back about the atrocities and deprivations experienced by those who tried to fight back against high concentrations of loyalist fighters there. Clearly, Gaddafi had a home-field advantage, and the diversity of populations within the west—particularly in Tripoli—deprived western rebels of the natural cohesiveness of the east.

Fighting in the east came to be characterized by rapid, chaotic retreats and the retaking of deserted villages by pro-Gaddafi forces. This was particularly the case in the eastern oil cities of Marsa Brega, Ras Lanuf, and Ajdabia, where tribal loyalties also came into play.
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As the months went on, however, and substantial progress was not made in rolling Gaddafi back in the west, many in the east began to feel that the western regions were not pulling their weight. There were murmurs that the westerners did not want liberation as badly as the east had.

This notion of western Libyan apathy could not be sustained, however, as Gaddafi's forces staged lengthy, brutal sieges to retake the major towns of Zawiya and Misurata, shelling both cities for months, often indiscriminately. The eastern fighters themselves had difficulty holding oil towns on the far outskirts of Benghazi, including Ajdabia, Marsa Brega, and Ras Lanuf. Lack of progress on the western and eastern fronts stemmed from a number of factors, foremost that they were outgunned and outtrained. Despite many army defections, loyalist forces demonstrated an early ability to adapt to new conditions created by NATO strikes, switching to light vehicles with mounted mortar launchers once their tanks became easy targets.

In the early days of the revolution, several western towns and cities had been able to convert momentum from protests and sit-ins into self-control. The most significant of these were the port city and industrial capital, Misurata, to Tripoli's east, and the town of Zawiya, to Tripoli's west, along
the key coastal road to Tunisia. Misurata fell to the rebels on February 23, whereupon it was immediately set upon by loyalist forces using heavy weapons. The fight for the coastal city of Zawiya started as it did in Misurata, on or about February 24 or 26, as rebel forces were joined by a large number of defecting army troops, and government forces fired upon a sit-in at a mosque.

The tanks of the Khamis Brigade turned the tide against the rebels. Zawiya rebels had managed to hold off pro-Gaddafi forces in thick fighting with many casualties until about March 10, when the brigade assaulted the city. Its tanks took a week to regain Zawiya, before moving on to Misurata. A state of bloody siege prevailed for almost three months, despite NATO's assistance.

The tide had turned against the rebels on March 20. After days of softening with artillery fire, loyalist armored units entered Misurata and held central Tripoli Street. Loyalist snipers picked off demonstrators from within the city. Government forces staged several massive attacks on March 28, the Khamis Brigade in particular firing upon civilians indiscriminately. By early April, the rebels had lost much of the city and were holding only the north and northeast sections of the city and the port.

With Abdelfattah Younes imploring NATO to do more, the situation was deemed sufficiently dire by April 18 that the EU made plans to send up to a thousand ground troops on a “humanitarian mission.” Loyalists continued indiscriminate mortar shelling and GRAD rocket attacks on residential areas of Misurata. However, by April 20, the rebel forces managed to turn things around and retake half the city. On April 22, Gaddafi's troops announced they were withdrawing and leaving resolution to local tribes. After a short hiatus, loyalists returned to shelling on April 24, hitting the city center and residential areas. During another massive loyalist assault on April 25, rebel forces countered effectively, pushing their attackers to the city perimeter by the following week. Rebels retook the airport on May 10 and secured coastal roads a few days later.

The battle for Misurata was intensely bloody. Tens, if not dozens, died each day from snipers and mortar rounds. Reports emerged that Gaddafi forces were using munitions banned by international treaty and cluster bombs, booby trapping bodies, and indiscriminately shelling residential areas. There were widespread reports that loyalist forces used helicopters painted with Red Cross insignia to attack the city. The ferocity of the battle demonstrated, first, the strength of the resolve of the Misuratan resistance,
and second, the importance the regime attached to making sure Misurata did not slip into rebel hands. Gaddafi clearly hoped to forestall such a devastating blow to overall morale and security in the west, as well as any hope of regaining territory in the east.

Once Misurata was secured, the rebels expected they would be able to retake the initiative. Instead, they fell into a phase of seeming paralysis, making few if any new gains on the western front for months.

During the first few months of the revolution, many different parties offered their services to mediate the Libyan conflict. Some were covering their bets with a not yet defeated patron; others had lucrative markets and strategic attachments to protect. Still others foresaw a protected bloodbath to which they felt a negotiation solution—even one that kept the Gaddafi family in place—would be far preferable.

On March 10, the International Crisis Group, a Washington, DC–based research group—just days before Gaddafi's onslaught against Benghazi—called for “complete cease-fire” and negotiations, aimed at “replacing the current regime with a more accountable, representative and law abiding government.” For the rebels, such a stance would amount to capitulation, if not certain death; Gaddafi himself showed absolutely no inclination to negotiate himself out of power.
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Russia and China, as per tradition, attempted to stand as long as possible with authoritarian regimes that were loyal customers for arms and other commercial deals, and good friends in a region where their influence was waning. In one of the stranger efforts, Kirsan Ilymzhinov, the Russian head of the World Chess Federation, arrived in Tripoli allegedly to try to convince Gaddafi to step down over a game of chess, as NATO bombs crackled around them. This was a vintage Gaddafi propaganda tactic that supported Gaddafi's assertions that “everything is fine.”
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Through the end of April, the US had kept diplomatic channels with Libya more or less open on the chance that compromise might still prove to be the only viable future to the bloody conflict. Once the NATO campaign had hit full swing, however, Western governments were increasingly loathe—officially at least—to pursue these leads, feeling that they would be of little use, if not actively counterproductive. Libya discovered that many of those who had helped facilitate the relationship at its early stages
were either no longer in positions of influence or unwilling to help. Tony Blair appeared to want to be as far away from Libya as possible. Of the American officials who had originally championed Libya, few were still in their original positions. David Welch, notably, had left the State Department for the international energy contractor Bechtel, California representative Tom Lantos died on February 11, 2008; Curt Weldon had lost his seat in Congress in early 2007.