Soldiers love black and white. It is becoming increasingly clear that Libya is becoming increasingly grey. Mike Crowley just detailed how the White House is trying to separate Libyan rebels from Libyan civilians when it comes to trying to figure out whom to bomb. The Pentagon is neck-deep in this debate, as well.
Army General Carter Ham is running the U.S. operation in Libya as chief of U.S. Africa Command, a job he has held for less than two weeks. He wrestled with the issue during a video press conference Monday with Pentagon reporters from his headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany (an accident of history, seeing as the Pentagon split off African operations from European Command in 2008).
The back-and-forth is illuminating. As Ham puts it: “Sometimes these are situations that brief much better at a headquarters than they do in the cockpit of an aircraft.”
As you go after the regime’s ground forces, to what degree can it really be said that you’re not providing close air support for the opposition, even if you’re not being in contact with them?
GEN. HAM: We do not provide close air support for the opposition forces. We protect civilians. I suspect some would argue that some within the opposition may be civilians. And if they are attacked by regime forces, then we would be obliged, if we possess the capability, to try to protect them from attack. But we have no mission and no intent to provide close air support to the opposition.
I hear you said that you’re not providing close air support to the opposition. But if the opposition were to leave Benghazi, were to resume essentially offensive military operations, and were to get into a clash with Libyan forces, what role, if any, would coalition aircraft or coalition forces play in supporting that?
GEN. HAM: I’m not real comfortable going down the path of hypothetical questions. I would just tie us back down to our mission. The mission is to protect civilians. If civilians are attacked, we have an obligation under Security Council resolution and the mission that’s been given to me to protect those civilians. We have no mission to support opposition forces if they should engage in offensive operations. And so I guess I would just leave it at that. We protect civilians. We do not have a mission to support the opposition.
Don’t you define, even now, rebel forces who are in Benghazi as civilians, in effect? I mean, if there were attacks on men holding guns who are rebel forces, would you not protect them?
GEN. HAM: It gets a little bit into some very specific parsing of this question because, again, who exactly is this opposition. It’s clear to me simply from watching the reports from many of the organizations that are represented in that [Pentagon briefing] room that many in the opposition truly are civilians, and they are trying to protect their homes, their families, their businesses. And in doing that, some of them have taken up arms, but they’re basically civilians trying to protect their civilian lives, businesses and families.
There are also those in the opposition that have armored vehicles and that have heavy weapons. To me, that says that those entities and those parts of the opposition are — I would argue — no longer covered under that protect-civilian clause. So it’s not a clear distinction, because we’re not talking about a regular military force. It’s a very problematic situation.
What we try to do and what we are charged with doing is when there are threats to the civilian populous, we are obliged under the mission and under the Security Council resolution to try to protect them. Again, you know, sometimes these are situations that brief much better at a headquarters than they do in the cockpit of an aircraft.
[The] instructions that we have given to our crews, to include down to the kneeboard information that they have, is to be very judicious in their application of force. Where they see a clear situation where civilians are threatened, then they are authorized to, and they have in the past, taken action to protect those civilians. If it’s a situation where it’s unclear that it is civilians who may be being attacked, then those aircrews are under instruction to be very cautious and not apply military force, again, unless they are convinced that doing so would be consistent with their mission to protect civilians.
How did the attack on Gaddafi’s compound tie into the mission of protecting civilians?
GEN. HAM: This is a large compound, maybe 5(00) or 700 meters by a thousand or more meters — a pretty big place with lots of different buildings and facilities inside of this compound.
There are some air-defense systems on the perimeter, security; there’s housing; there’s normal things, you know, mess kind of facilities; and there’s also a command-and-control facility that we are certain is a command-and-control facility. We have multiple means that tell us that. And that’s the facility that was attacked.
And again, we do so with tremendous precision. That particular target was decided upon because degrading that command-and-control facility would degrade the regime’s ability to control its military forces in the attack of civilians.
So we think there is a very, very direct relationship in the attack on that target and the mission that we have.
Do you have the ability to distinguish the opposition forces from the Gaddafi forces? And the reason is, if the opposition forces start moving in a coordinated fashion, could they in fact be targeted as well?
GEN. HAM: Distinguishing between opposition and regime forces can be very difficult, particularly when they are in very, very close contact. Again, we think our experience is that many in the opposition are basically civilians trying to protect their home. But we also are clearly aware that there are some in the opposition that do have armored vehicles, they have heavy weapons. We have seen in the in news reporting that some have certainly some at least limited offensive capability. So this will become a particular challenge for us, should that eventuality occur.
We have no authority and no mission to support the opposition forces and anything that they might do. What we do do [speaking of stepping in it] is base our judgments on the actions of ground forces, though wherever they are, if they are attacking civilians, then we have a mission to protect those civilians. If opposition forces somehow get engaged in other operations that’s outside that mandate, then that’s outside that mandate.
If opposition forces are trying to take back a city that Gaddafi holds couldn’t you argue that they would be attacking civilians; and therefore, would they be targeted as well?
GEN. HAM: Again, I’m not crazy about answering the hypothetical questions. We would have to look at that situation as it was unfolding. We do have a mission to protect civilians. And we would have to make an assessment as that unfolded as to what our actions might be, consistent with [UN Resolution] 1973, and consistent with our mission.
