- Title: ITALY: U.S. commander says preference is to hand Libya mission over to NATO
- Date: 25th March 2011
- Summary: SIGONELLA, SICILY, ITALY (MARCH 24, 2011) (REUTERS) V22 AIRCRAFT CARRYING COMMANDER OF THE U.S. AFRICA COMMAND, GENERAL CARTER HAM JOURNALISTS IN FRONT OF TERMINAL OF SIGONELLA NAVAL AIR BASE OFFICERS ON TARMAC TALKING TO HAM V22 ON TARMAC HAM AT NEWS CONFERENCE (SOUNDBITE) (English) GENERAL CARTER HAM, COMMANDER OF THE U.S. AFRICA COMMAND, SAYING: "The best and easiest transition would be to NATO because so many of the nations who are participating are NATO. This is a great example of why we have this military alliance that can come together very quickly and operate very effectively together. So I think that structure is probably the best way to make this transition and I know those discussions are underway. As I mentioned I've been travelling most of the day today so I'm not aware of any progress that may have been achieved today. But as a military commander my preference would be to hand off to a NATO command." JOURNALISTS (SOUNDBITE) (English) GENERAL CARTER HAM, COMMANDER OF THE U.S. AFRICA COMMAND, SAYING: "I cannot be sure there have been no civilian casualties. What I can be sure of is that we are very very precise and discriminate in our targeting. There have been more instances than I can think of in the conduct of this campaign where our pilots have made the correct decision to not attack a legitimate military target for concern of the civilian casualties that that attack would have caused. It is a very very high priority and I cannot emphasize enough the precision with which we conduct these strikes. I am not at all surprised that the regime has made claims of civilian casualties and frankly I'm surprised that it's kind of taken them this long to make that claim. We should also note though the regime doesn't talk about the mosque that they destroyed in Zawiyah which we have evidence of. They don't talk about the thousands of Libyan citizens which they have killed which we know is very true. So, and I am sorry if I'm a little emotional about this, the people who are killing civilians are the regime of this current government leader in Libya. The people who are protecting the civilians are the forces of the United Nations which are conducting these operations." (SOUNDBITE) (English) GENERAL CARTER HAM, COMMANDER OF THE U.S. AFRICA COMMAND, SAYING: "I have a clear mission. The clear mission is establish arms embargo, it's in place, the no-fly zone is in place. We are in the process of protecting civilians and that will continue. And then the last piece is transition to a designated headquarters which I suspect will be NATO. So for me I think our mission is well defined and it has a definite end state and I think we'll be in good shape with regard to that. And I am not concerned at present about mission creep." HAM WALKING AWAY
- Embargoed: 9th April 2011 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Italy, Italy
- Country: Italy
- Topics: International Relations,Defence / Military
- Reuters ID: LVA7M47Y2FOJMQX4LK55KD0613TU
- Story Text: The United States is working very hard to hand over leadership of the coalition policing a no-fly zone over Libya to some other entity, possibly as early as this weekend, U.S. Vice Admiral Bill Gortney said on Thursday (March 24).
The Commander of the U.S. Africa Command, General Carter Ham, said his preference would be to hand over to NATO.
"The best and easiest transition would be to NATO because so many of the nations who are participating are NATO. This is a great example of why we have this military alliance that can come together very quickly and operate very effectively together. So I think that structure is probably the best way to make this transition and I know those discussions are underway. As I mentioned I've been travelling most of the day today so I'm not aware of any progress that may have been achieved today. But as a military commander my preference would be to hand off to a NATO command," Ham told journalists at the Sigonella Naval Air Base on the Italian island of Sicily.
Ham said great care was taken to avoid civilian casualties in Libya.
"I cannot be sure there have been no civilian casualties. What I can be sure of is that we are very very precise and discriminate in our targeting. There have been more instances than I can think of in the conduct of this campaign where our pilots have made the correct decision to not attack a legitimate military target for concern of the civilian casualties that that attack would have caused. It is a very very high priority and I cannot emphasize enough the precision with which we conduct these strikes. I am not at all surprised that the regime has made claims of civilian casualties and frankly I'm surprised that it's kind of taken them this long to make that claim. We should also note though the regime doesn't talk about the mosque that they destroyed in Zawiyah which we have evidence of. They don't talk about the thousands of Libyan citizens which they have killed which we know is very true. So, and I am sorry if I'm a little emotional about this, the people who are killing civilians are the regime of this current government leader in Libya. The people who are protecting the civilians are the forces of the United Nations which are conducting these operations."
General Ham also said the military mission in Libya was clearly defined.
"I have a clear mission. The clear mission is establish arms embargo, it's in place, the no-fly zone is in place. We are in the process of protecting civilians and that will continue. And then the last piece is transition to a designated headquarters which I suspect will be NATO. So for me I think our mission is well defined and it has a definite end state and I think we'll be in good shape with regard to that. And I am not concerned at present about mission creep."
NATO clinched agreement on Thursday to take over command of all allied military operations in Libya from the United States after days of sometimes heated wrangling with Muslim member Turkey.
The deal came after a four-way telephone conference between U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the foreign ministers of Turkey, France and Britain. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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