remember all those who suffered and were lost under qaddafi and look forward to the promise of a new day. paul: that was president obama on thursday, reacting to the death of dictator muammar qaddafi and calling it a momentous day in the history of libya. but is it also a vindication of the administration s often criticized policy of leading from behind? let s ask bret stevens and board member matt comiskey. no question a victory for the people of libya, matt. but is it also a victory for the u.s. interest? absolutely. it s the u.s. military that led the bombing campaign that turned the tide in the civil war and the europeans were out front, but in fact we provided the drones, the mid air refueling tankers, when the europeans ran out day four of the campaign we quietly surprised them and made this
happen militarily and president obama didn t take that lead politically, i think that cost us, but overall a great success, it would have been terrible if he stayed in power, tunisia and on this point, whether or not his political restraint cost us. elaborate on that. well, look, this was a campaign that should have taken two weeks, instead took seven months. the result was a tremendous loss of lives. the result was the near collapse of n.a.t.o. and people forget that the british and the french, the primary, our n.a.t.o. allies practically ran out of bombs the first couple weeks in the war and n.a.t.o. nearly fell apart over the campaign. and qaddafi stayed in power much longer than he needed to and this was a weak regime could have been toppled in weeks. paul: the administration argues had the president led from the front, if you will,
its power. there is no place that is that has seen more influence of iraq other than syria than iraq right now. iran has too big of a role, it s one of the reasons we couldn t get an agreement on the safety and security of our troops with respect to legal actions and if we leaf m leave, my concern is we re leaving a potential state that could turn into a puppet state tore iran. that is a big concern. martha: rick santorum there was a reporter in the room with the president who shouted that question to him about iran as he was leaving the room. we ll no doubt hear more about that. senator rick santorum good to talk to you. now response coming in from the white house to questions about why u.s. taxpayers are helping to bank roll a company that are building cars in finland. good question, right? more on that coming up. celebrations in the streets of libya after word that moammar qaddafi is deed. wh dead.
say they did not know gadhafi was in that convoy. quote, and this is from their statement: reporter: those are carefully chosen words because the u.n. mandate that they were operating under did not allow for them to target an individual or target gadhafi. alisyn: aha. and, obviously, the u.s. has spent a significant amount of money in libya since got involved. is there any talk of the u.s. taxpayers getting reimbursed for the cost of the military intervention? reporter: well, certainly if you listen to senators such as lindsey graham, you have that impression that the $1.1 billion could be taken out of the $36 billion of frozen gadhafi assets here in the u.s. they re going to pay us back. they have $34 billion of frozen assets under our control.
he was dead an had bullet wounds to the body. so there is a lot of debate in groups like human rights watch and amnesty are looking now for an investigation into that. but libya is moving on, they are planning large celebrations tomorrow, because the libyan authorities will announce the whole country liberated then, and then, martha, there will be of course a massive party here in tripoli, back to you. martha: unbelievable scenes we have seen on that video and playing out on the ground. thank you very much. the new york post zeroing in on moammar qaddafi s killer, echoing arab media reports that a 20-year-old gun-slinging yankee fan fired the fatal shot. look at that, that was the headline we woke up to here in new york. moammar qaddafi killed by yankee fan. the dictator as we saw in this incredible hard to watch rid kwroe pulled from a drainage pipe trying to escape his hometown of sirte. the young man that we have shown