Page 18 - Inside Libya News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

People who got it done, thank you for being with us. >> thank you very much. we're just supporting the japanese over here and they're doing a fabulous job. jon: they sure have their hands full, that's for sure. jenna: moving to another area of the world, the obama administration just approved covert operation necessary libya. big news item. what exactly does it mean, though? makes you think about a movie, doesn't it? we're going to talk to a former cia operations officer about what's really going on with the cia inside libya. jon: in texas, a scene of terror, chaos, and death, when bullets fly...

Case in iraq sometimes involve both enormous human and fiscal cost. jenna: that is defense secretary robert gates earlier. he was briefing congress on what is happening in libya. that hearing just wrapped up on capitol hill. adam smith is the ranking democrat on the armed services committee who teld that hearing and he's joining us now. congressman smith you might have heard a little bit about the reporter was reporting to us about the qaddhafi forces really pushing back the rebels. the question we have today about regime change, qaddhafi and what is happening in libya, how do the rebels win i...

2002 and 2003 that we're not going to put our young american troops on the ground in libya. the president has to answer to congress at some point. i think he's within his powers and as a nation we made the right decision by stopping a humanitarian disaster, a massacre and then on the up side if we do happen to get qaddhafi that is a great thing. that would just be a bonus. jon: you say the president has to answer to congress at some point. you have heard many of your fellow members saying he was supposed to come to us before he started this action and get congress' blessing. >> sure. i think t...

What is absolutely clear is if after the u.n. resolution we in the u.s. had not acted, this would probably be over now and qaddhafi would be back in power, the rebels would be crushed and thousands of people would have died. the decision to go in and prevent that humanitarian catastrophe was really looking at the short term. in the short term we could do this. no guarantee for the long term but there was an absolute guarantee of failure if we didn't act. anyone who says we shouldn't have done this has some say they would be okay with qaddhafi back in power and thousands of people crushed and m...

Moved them he would have and he would have had ample time to do that if the president had to come before congress, congress then debated this and we went in two weeks later, probably when it was too late any way. the president has to have the ability to stage a surprise attack if it's in the nation's interest. and with the u.n. security council resolution and with nato taking control now, let's just push this to nato, let's let nato determine what the end state is, let's let nato take total control of that so we can finish up in iraq and afghanistan. we all agree we have our hands full. i thin...