UK: Obama from Chile: It will be the Libyan people's fight for change that will end with "Ultimately sweeping Gaddafi out of power"

The Guardian


Obama says Gaddafi may wait out military assault

US president says it might not be 'military might' but a belief among Libyans that ultimately sweeps Gaddafi from power

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi may try to hang on to power despite the US-military backed mission in Libya, Barack Obama said in an interview on Tuesday. But the US president said he hoped military action would create enough space for rebels to "create a legitimate government".

Speaking to CNN during his trip to South America, Obama said he hoped the military intervention would help the Libyan opposition start organising for change. He said it might not be "military might" but a belief among the Libyan people that it is time for a change that ends with "ultimately sweeping Gaddafi out of power".

"I think – our hope is – that the first thing that can happen once we've cleared the space is that the rebels are able to start discussing how they organise themselves, how they articulate their aspirations for the Libyan people and create a legitimate government," he said.

Obama said the immediate goal of the military intervention that began on Saturday was to prevent Gaddafi's army from conducting an onslaught on the rebel stronghold of Benghazi. "Because the international community rallied, his troops have now pulled back from Benghazi," he said.

While the US and its coalition partners, including Nato allies and Arab states, are establishing a no-fly zone over Libya and attacking the Libyan leader's forces, the president warned Gaddafi was unlikely to back down soon.

"Gaddafi may try to hunker down and wait it out even in the face of the no-fly zone, even though his forces have been degraded," Obama said.

The president, in El Salvador on the last leg of his trip, said there were other ways the international community could try to oust Gaddafi. "Keep in mind we don't just have military tools at our disposal in terms of accomplishing Gaddafi's leaving," he said. "We've put in place strong international sanctions. We've frozen his assets. We will continue to apply a whole range of pressure on him."

"Potentially what we may see is all the enthusiasm that the Libyan people had for a change in government that was occurring a few weeks ago," and that had repressed by Gaddafi's "brutal amplification of force" would now be reawakened, the president said.

Obama noted the irony of being a Nobel peace prize winner who ordered the US military into action on the eight anniversary of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, but he said the goal in this case was humanitarian.

"I'm accustomed to this contradiction of being both a commander-in-chief but also somebody who aspires to peace," Obama said. "We're not invading a country, we are not acting alone," he said. "We are acting under a mandate issued by the UN security council."


http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/23/obama-gaddafi-military-mission-libya