Page 23 - Inside Libya News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Coming together. well, and arab support has all along the white house said been crucial to the functioning of this thing. this cannot look like the united states attacking another arab country. officials say the proof of the pudding, if you will, the proof of the value of the president's broad coalition was the treatment the two american fighters received when their f-15 when their f 15 went down in libya, protected by the town's people and the opposition leaders instead of being attacked or turned over to qaddafi's forces, shepard. >> shepard: what do we know about the president's involvement...

Benghazi itself. we faced the prospect of an imminent humanitarian disaster. hundreds of thousands of civilians were in danger. so, an international coalition was compelled to act. french planes were the first to reach the skies over benghazi. cruise missiles from the united states and the united kingdom followed, striking the regime's air defenses and clearing the way for allied aircraft to implement the no-fly zone. many other nations have now joined this effort. after only five days, we have made significant progress. a massacre in benghazi was prevented, qaddafi's air force and air defense...

Terms of coalition warships, off the coast of libya, and the u.s. plan and the pentagon plan is to essentially hand over in the next couple of days, command and control to a coalition leader and in these initial days and hours, the u.s. has -- military simply has unique capabilities and, those capabilities are called upon to destroy the air defense systems of qaddafi. >> rick: you mentioned some of the assets that are involved in this. if you could put it into context, are we talking about a lot? >> reporter: well, you've got 11 naval warships but it is -- the really significant factor and the...

>> rick: some calling the world's intervention in the crisis in libya a defining moment in the president presidency of president obama, the presidentation the military action was not miss first choice and nethe people of looeibya mu corrected. joining us is mary anne marsh and syndicated columnist, cal thomas, nice to see you. it is a president who less than a week ago, according to news reports i have been reading was against any kind of military action in libya. what happened, do you think? >> i'm not sure that is so much the case as he was considering all of the options and in doing that ha...

Libya would likely have to take a more aggressive position: >> translator: our efforts, oppose any aggression by colonel qaddafi, against the population of benghazi. as of now, our aircraft are preventing planes nom attacking the town, as it is known, other french aircraft are ready to intervene against tanks, armored vehicles threatening unarmed civilians. >> reporter: shortly after that a french defense official said one of the jets fired on a libyan military vehicle and there were other reports that said the french had destroyed at least four libyan tanks. rick. >> rick: molly henneberg, th...