Washington, March 29: US President Barack Obama says that the US forces will not be bogged down in Libya, since Washington cannot afford repeating its errors during war in Iraq.
“Regime change there took eight years, thousands of American and Iraqi lives and nearly a trillion dollars. That is not something we can afford to repeat in Libya,” Obama said in a nationally televised address on Monday.
The US president warned that should Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi be ousted in Libya, the transition to a legitimate government would be a “difficult task.”
He said that NATO will take full command of all coalition military operations in Libya beginning Wednesday.
American officials claim that although the coalition warplanes have carried out 983 missions over Libya, not one civilian has been killed, despite reports that over 100 civilians have been killed by NATO bombardment alone.
The US cannot afford to repeat the same costs as incurred in the Iraq war by seeking to overthrow the Libyan leader militarily, as it would be a “costly mistake,” he said.
Seeking to refute criticism from the Republicans, he strongly defended his interventionist war launched on Libya, and said it was to prevent a slaughter of civilians that would have stained the world’s conscience and “been a betrayal of who we are.”
But he failed to give any estimation as to when the so-called conflict may end.
Obama very bluntly said the US-led response had stopped Gaddafi’s advances and halted a slaughter that could have shaken the stability of an entire region.
———Agencies