U.S. options limited in Libya
<p>A Libyan protester shouts as copies of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's "Green Book" are burned during a demonstration against him in Benghazi, eastern Libya, Wednesday.</p>
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Obama administration on Wednesday tried to rein in "loose talk" about military options in Libya, including a "no-fly zone" that the Pentagon chief said would first require attacking Moammar Gadhafi's government.
At the same time, U.S. officials said the North African country risked descending into chaos.
The idea of protective military flights over Libya has gained footing with some in the United States and Europe as a means to prevent Gadhafi from launching aerial attacks on rebels seeking his ouster. But Defense Secretary Robert Gates told lawmakers that a military operation would have to come before creation of a no-fly zone.
"There is a lot of, frankly, loose talk about some of these military options," Gates said at a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing. "Let's just call a spade a spade: A no-fly zone begins with an attack on Libya to destroy the air defenses."
He added that the operation would require more warplanes than are on a single U.S. aircraft carrier.
"It is a big operation in a big country," he said.
Gates said the Pentagon could get the job done if ordered by the president, but his message was unmistakable. With wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the military has no interest in getting bogged down in a third one, especially in another Muslim country.
Across the Capitol, senators worked on an aid package to Arab countries to solidify democratic gains and improve relations with citizens in a part of the world accustomed to U.S. support for questionable rulers.
Sen. John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said at a hearing attended by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton that "significant financial commitment by the U.S." was crucial to help what he called a "monumental and uplifting transformation" in the Mideast.
Clinton testified that the U.S. was "taking no options off the table so long as the Libyan government continues to turn its guns on its own people." She said the administration had grave concerns about the instability in the country, but she tempered her tone on a possible no-fly zone.
"One of our biggest concerns is Libya descending into chaos and becoming a giant Somalia," Clinton said.
She said that didn't seem imminently likely. But she noted that many al-Qaida fighters in Afghanistan and Iraq came from eastern Libya, which rebels largely have freed from Gadhafi's control.