US President Barack Obama defended his decision to launch military action in Libya, declaring on Monday night that the United States intervened to prevent a slaughter of civilians that would have stained the world's conscience. But he ruled out targeting leader Moammar Gadhafi, warning that trying to oust him militarily would be a mistake as costly as the war in Iraq. Speaking before an audience of military members and diplomats in a televised address to the nation, Obama announced that NATO would take command over the entire Libya operation on Wednesday, keeping his pledge to get the US out of the lead fast.
But the president offered no estimate on when the conflict might end and no details about its costs despite demands for those answers from lawmakers. "I said that America's role would be limited; that we would not put ground troops into Libya; that we would focus our unique capabilities on the front end of the operation, and that we would transfer responsibility to our allies and partners. Tonight, we are fulfilling that pledge," Obama said. He declined to label the US-led military campaign as a "war," but made an expansive case for why he believed it was in the national interest of the United States and allies to use force.
Obama said the US-led response had stopped Gadhafi's advances and halted a slaughter that could have shaken the stability of an entire region.
Obama cast the intervention in Libya as imperative to keep Gadhafi from killing those rebelling against him and to prevent a refugee crisis that would drive Libyans into Egypt and Tunisia, two countries emerging from their own uprisings.
"To brush aside America's responsibility as a leader and - more profoundly - our responsibilities to our fellow human beings under such circumstances would have been a betrayal of who we are," Obama said.
"Some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries. The United States of America is different," he said. "And as president, I refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action."
The president reiterated the White House position that Gadhafi should not remain in power but the UN resolution that authorised power does not go that far. That gap in directives has left the White House to deal with the prospect that Gadhafi will remain indefinitely. Obama said the US would try to isolate him other ways. "Of course, there is no question that Libya - and the world - will be better off with Gadhafi out of power. I, along with many other world leaders, have embraced that goal, and will actively pursue it through non-military means. But broadening our military mission to include regime change would be a mistake," he said. Obama then raised the issue of Iraq and the move to rid Iraq of Saddam Hussein, a war that deeply divided the nation and defined the presidency of George W. Bush.
"Regime change there took eight years, thousands of American and Iraqi lives and nearly a trillion dollars," he said. "That is not something we can afford to repeat in Libya." Obama's speech was his most aggressive attempt to answer the questions mounting from Republican critics, his own party and war-weary Americans - chiefly, why the US was involved in war in another Muslim nation.
