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The president to arrive. the motorcade to arrive, very shortly. obama in chile. "cnn newsroom" continues right now with randi kaye in for ali velshi. hey, randi? >> hi there. thank you. a weekend of action, now comes the patrolling of a no-fly zone over libya. that's the word from africa. u.s. military's africa command describes phase two of an allied campaign to protect libyan civilians from their own government. the action phase include add cruise missile strike on the heart of moammar gadhafi's compound in tripoli. libyan officials say no one was hurt, and the allies say gadhafi is not be...

That's where libyan officials took us to just a couple of hours after we heard explosions and saw smoke in the compound, randi. >> did gadhafi do you think expect it to come to this? does the government appear the least bit intimidated by what's happening in the last couple of days? >> reporter: well, they would say no. they would point to all their supporters, and we've seen perhaps maybe several hundred to a thousand come out around that palace compound. they would point to that and say no. but when you listen to what they actually tell you -- there was a government spokesman at the site of ...

That the plan that had been developed in great detail extensively prior to my departure was put into place. jim, i've forgotten if there were any other elements of that question. but i've tried to be as thorough as possible. >> arab support, sir. >> well, look, the arab league specifically called for a no-fly zone before we went to the un e uniteed nations and i think that was an important element in this overall campaign. >> but will they be part of the mission? >> absolutely. we are in consultations as we speak. as i said, there are different phases to the campaign. the initial campaign, we ...

He said so many times over the past couple of weeks, that gadhafi must go. even though that's the u.s. long-term goal for gadhafi to go, the u.n. security council resolution, resolution 1973 stops way short of that. it calls for the protection of civilians, for a no-fly zone. it doesn't call for regime change. so they're very sensitive about their public statements, making it clear that this is the immediate goal, to protect libyan civilians and to get this no-fly zmoen place. i don't think he's going to want tuk about what he said before, namely, that gadhafi in the end has to go, even though...

This is why staying in afghanistan was such a big mistake. as long as this doesn't lead to an only pags, then i think the west is not going to inspire the kind of opposition that those wars have inspired. but that depends to a great extent on what happens in the next few weegss, whether gadhafi is able to hold out or not and whether his people are able to throw him out or not. >> let me take you down the road to rom p and speculation. if we accept that the allied powers learned the mistake of the iraq invasion of 2003 of a post-invasion or post-military activity, what -- and the age-old questi...