Gadhafi A News Today

-- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com good morning, everyone. its friday, october 21st. alis off today. welcome to "american morning." >> its been a long week. a big week of news. its been a very long week. >> i must say, i had a great time in vegas. >> i know. vegas seems like a year ago. doesnt it? all of the gadhafi news yesterday. you can back from the big debate and the gadhafi news. moammar gadhafi killed in his hometown, captured alive. almost 24 hours after reports he was m...

>> can you assess the situation in libya now? the u.s. and nato together on the right path there do you think? >> it is hard to tell where all this is going. it is also equally difficult to say gadhafi a year from now will be in power. the situation is perilous for this uprising. to include in tripoli, the nations capital, 2 million people, he suppressed the uprising there with direct fire from antiaircraft guns. hes maintaining control. the libyan armed forces are not effectively engaged by nat...

Ground, which they have had, and to regain ground which they have lost. unfortunately, we are also seeing with gadhafi a continuing pressure on the rebels, on his people, a willingness to use force. we had reports today of continuing military action by gadhafis forces in misrata and elsewhere. so this is a volatile, dynamic situation that is unfolding. we accomplished a lot in a very short period of time. we clearly believe, as president obama said last night, that we prevented a massacre in ben...

But with that gratitude, people want more continued support. they want air strikes to continue. because as you mentioned the frontline is now advancing towards gadhafis hometown of sirte. that fight is not going well after -- about a 48-hour rapid advance. rebels reached sirte yesterday. this morning, gadhafis -- forces were pushing back the rebels, driving them back several miles. gadhafis troops have created a defensive perimeter around sirte and without much more western help, it is pretty cl...

Rogers was also at the briefing, an heres what he told me. did anyone in that room, congressman, express any concern over what the president would be doing, what hed be saying, or was everyone in support of the mission? >> well, i mean, generally i think everyone was in support. i think senator lugar had some questions, and i dont really want to disclose what happened, you know, in a confidential meeting with the president and the secretaries, but at the end of the day i think the president outl...

Issues along with secretary gates who laid out what the options were, what the possibilities were and where we were today. >> did anyone in that room, congressman, express any concern over what the president would be doing, what he would be saying, or was everyone in support of the mission? >> well, generally i think everyone was in support. i think senator lugar had some questions, and i dont really want to disclose what happened in a confidential meeting with the president and the secretaries....

Deal, a negotiated exit deal that you may have heard reports about earlier on in the day for moammar gadhafi, well, neither the government nor the opposition are now prepared to stand that up. in fact, you heard ben wedeman and nic robertson saying it would be very unlikely that the opposition now would be prepared to offer gadhafi a negotiated exit deal. the other thing weve been hearing today is the escalation of fighting, air strikes west of tripoli, and i must remind you. when im talking wes...

My question is this. is getting rid of gadhafi a vital u.s. interest? >> i think stopping the violence, first of all, thats occurring in libya is most important. the president has been very aggressive. we froze -- we initiated sanctions quicker than we have ever done in the past. froze $30 billion of gadhafis money in the u.s. we have been very aggressive in our coordination with the international community in looking at all options. and we have also been very aggressive in bringing humanitarian...

Why, how do you explain in their silence. >> its obsessive fear and caution because they believe at that the important thing is cutting the debt is the entire religious, basic issue on which theyre running. nothing else matters and when i hear mitch daniels saying that-- >> governor of indiana. >> the governor of indiana supposed to be the ideal candidate in following that warm little heart, up until now, hes saying that this is the great moral obligation and he said it at the conservative actio...

Why, how do you explain in their silence. >> its obsessive fear and caution because they believe at that the important thing is cutting the debt is the entire religious, basic issue on which theyre running. nothing else matters and when i hear mitch daniels saying that-- >> governor of indiana. >> the governor of indiana supposed to be the ideal candidate in following that warm little heart, up until now, hes saying that this is the great moral obligation and he said it at the conservative actio...