The United States came under mounting pressure yesterday to help arm rebels facing Muammar Gaddafi’s emboldened and regrouping military, amid charges Washington missed recent chances to oust Libya’s strongman.
President Barack Obama has insisted that all options including military action remain on the table with respect to Libya, where Gaddafi forces have unleashed deadly airstrikes on rebels and civilians in efforts to crush an uprising in which thousands are believed to have been killed.
But with the administration cautioning that a decision on a no-fly zone was still far off, US lawmakers and former officials appearing on Sunday talk shows coalesced around the likelihood that supplying weapons to the outgunned rebels was a way forward.
“I assume that a lot of weapons are going to find their way there (to rebels in Libya) from one means or another over the course of the next weeks,” Democrat John Kerry, who helms the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
Ex-governor of New Mexico Bill Richardson, a former US ambassador to the UN, also said yesterday it was time to “covertly arm the rebels” and enforce a no-fly zone over Libya.
And Stephen Hadley, national security adviser for President Obama’s predecessor George W. Bush, said Washington should look at the potential for funnelling arms to Col Gaddafi’s opponents.
“Obviously, if there is a way to get weapons into the hands of the rebels, if we can get anti-aircraft systems so that they can enforce a no-fly zone over their own territory, that would be helpful,” Mr Hadley told CNN.
When asked if sending weapons to opposition forces was a possibility, Pentagon spokesman Colonel David Lapan said: “As the President said, all options are being considered, but we’re not discussing details of the various options.”
Mr Kerry said a no-fly zone – which would necessitate air strikes to take out Libya’s defences – should be set up in conjunction with allies, but warned that direct military action would be “trickier”.
“The last thing we want to think about is any kind of military intervention, and I don’t consider the fly zone stepping over that line,” he said.
“We don’t want troops on the ground. They don’t want troops on the ground.”
But there were other ways of displaying US might to Tripoli, including the use of military transport planes to fly Egyptian refugees out of Tunisia, and the recent arrival in the Mediterranean of two US warships with marines on board.
“We have made the presence of American military felt for that purpose,” Mr Kerry said.
Washington recently missed a key opportunity to end Col Gaddafi’s four-decade grip on power, according to a former regime member.
“We asked for help when he was on the ropes,” Libya’s ex-minister of immigration Ali Errishi, who resigned shortly after the uprising began nearly three weeks ago, told CNN’s State of the Union.