Fact Check: How Obama's Libya claims fit the facts

AP once again with this Fact Check article on Obama's speech on Libya is proving that a lot of their reporters are once again playing it right down the middle and calling it like they see it. Found this paragraph from the AP Fact Check particularly telling:

In transferring command and control to NATO, the U.S. is turning the reins over to an organization dominated by the U.S., both militarily and politically. In essence, the U.S. runs the show that is taking over running the show.

In reality they are saying Obama is using semantics to convince Americans that the US is no longer in charge when we will still be running the show. AP gets it but will the liberals in the media that hang on to Obama's every word?

Fact Check: How Obama's Libya claims fit the facts

Oklahoman
Published: March 28, 2011

WASHINGTON (AP) — There may be less than meets the eye to President Barack Obama's statements Monday night that NATO is taking over from the U.S. in Libya and that U.S. action is limited to defending people under attack there by Moammar Gadhafi's forces.

In transferring command and control to NATO, the U.S. is turning the reins over to an organization dominated by the U.S., both militarily and politically. In essence, the U.S. runs the show that is taking over running the show.

And the rapid advance of rebels in recent days strongly suggests they are not merely benefiting from military aid in a defensive crouch, but rather using the multinational force in some fashion — coordinated or not — to advance an offensive.

Here is a look at some of Obama's assertions in his address to the nation Monday, and how they compare with the facts:

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OBAMA: "Our most effective alliance, NATO, has taken command of the enforcement of the arms embargo and no-fly zone. ... This transfer from the United States to NATO will take place on Wednesday. Going forward, the lead in enforcing the no-fly zone and protecting civilians on the ground will transition to our allies and partners, and I am fully confident that our coalition will keep the pressure on Gadhafi's remaining forces. In that effort, the United States will play a supporting role — including intelligence, logistical support, search and rescue assistance, and capabilities to jam regime communications. Because of this transition to a broader, NATO-based coalition, the risk and cost of this operation — to our military, and to American taxpayers — will be reduced significantly."

THE FACTS: As by far the pre-eminent player in NATO, and a nation historically reluctant to put its forces under operational foreign command, the United States will not be taking a back seat in the campaign even as its profile diminishes for public consumption.

NATO partners are bringing more into the fight. But the same "unique capabilities" that made the U.S. the inevitable leader out of the gate will continue to be in demand. They include a range of attack aircraft, refueling tankers that can keep aircraft airborne for lengthy periods, surveillance aircraft that can detect when Libyans even try to get a plane airborne, and, as Obama said, planes loaded with electronic gear that can gather intelligence or jam enemy communications and radars.

The United States supplies 22 percent of NATO's budget, almost as much as the next largest contributors — Britain and France — combined. A Canadian three-star general, Charles Bouchard, was selected to be in charge of all NATO operations in Libya. Bouchard is deputy commander of NATO's Allied Joint Force Command Naples. The command's top officer is an American admiral, Samuel Locklear, and Locklear's boss is the supreme allied commander Europe, a post always held by an American.

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OBAMA: "Our military mission is narrowly focused on saving lives."

THE FACTS: Even as the U.S. steps back as the nominal leader, reduces some assets and fires a declining number of cruise missiles, the scope of the mission appears to be expanding and the end game remains unclear.

Despite insistences that the operation is only to protect civilians, the airstrikes now are undeniably helping the rebels to advance. U.S. officials acknowledge that the effect of air attacks on Gadhafi's forces — and on the supply and communications links that support them — is useful if not crucial to the rebels. "Clearly they're achieving a benefit from the actions that we're taking," Navy Vice Adm. William Gortney, staff director for the Joint Chiefs, said Monday.

The Pentagon has been turning to air power of a kind more useful than high-flying bombers in engaging Libyan ground forces. So far these have included low-flying Air Force AC-130 and A-10 attack aircraft, and the Pentagon is considering adding armed drones and helicopters.

Obama said "we continue to pursue the broader goal of a Libya that belongs not to a dictator, but to its people," but spoke of achieving that through diplomacy and political pressure, not force of U.S. arms.

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OBAMA: Seeking to justify military intervention, the president said the U.S. has "an important strategic interest in preventing Gadhafi from overrunning those who oppose him. A massacre would have driven thousands of additional refugees across Libya's borders, putting enormous strains on the peaceful - yet fragile - transitions in Egypt and Tunisia. The democratic impulses that are dawning across the region would be eclipsed by the darkest form of dictatorship, as repressive leaders concluded that violence is the best strategy to cling to power. The writ of the U.N. Security Council would have been shown to be little more than empty words, crippling its future credibility to uphold global peace and security. So while I will never minimize the costs involved in military action, I am convinced that a failure to act in Libya would have carried a far greater price for America."

THE FACTS: Obama did not wait to make that case to Congress, despite his past statements that presidents should get congressional authorization before taking the country to war, absent a threat to the nation that cannot wait.

"The president does not have the power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize and military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation," he told The Boston Globe in 2007 in his presidential campaign. "History has shown us time and again ... that military action is most successful when it is authorized and supported by the legislative branch."

Obama's defense secretary, Robert Gates, said Sunday that the crisis in Libya "was not a vital national interest to the United States, but it was an interest."

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Associated Press writers Jim Drinkard and Robert Burns contributed to this report.

Read more: The Oklahoman

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Since Obama aides say he made up his mind on Tuesday, why didn't Obama notify Congress before going on his spring break trip to South and Central America on that Friday? Most members of Congress got the word when Obama released a recording detailing his action while he was in Brazil. If Obama did make up his mind on the 15th, strange that he never told his Secretary of State who kept going out saying Obama couldn't make up his mind as late at the 17th of March.

Senator Inhofe (R-OK) had a few things to say about Obama and his lack of consulting Congress today:

Inhofe blasts Obama on Libya, “in shock” over lack of consultation
posted at 6:30 pm on March 28, 2011 by Ed Morrissey

Hot Air spoke to Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) in an exclusive interview a few minutes ago just after he returned to Washington after more than a week at home in Oklahoma, with his first media response to the military action in Libya. Inhofe, the second-ranking member of the Armed Services Committee and also a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, says he was never consulted by the White House on the action, and after checking with both Democrats and Republicans on those committees, isn’t sure anyone was consulted. Inhofe accused Obama of reversing his stance on intervention in order to take credit for leadership of the coalition, and suggested that Obama waited until Congress was in recess to pull the trigger:

Click Here to view Senator Inhofe's exclusive interview with Ed Morrissey of Hot Air. “

I don’t think it’s good policy” to keep Congress out of the decision process on military intervention, Inhofe told me, noting that George W. Bush came to Congress first before beginning offensive military action in Afghanistan and Iraq. When I asked Inhofe whether Congress would have authorized the President’s move had Obama consulted Capitol Hill, Inhofe expressed some reservations. “You almost have to wonder if he did this intentionally,” Inhofe says about the timing of the decision, “because we were out of session in a recess.” Inhofe objects to the fact that he wasn’t consulted as a member of the two committees with oversight in this situation, but “even his own Democrat leadership was not consulted,” and says that Obama will have a hard time explaining that in his speech tonight.

Even apart from the timing, Inhofe has more questions than answers. “Are we going to be able to do it with just air power alone? We don’t know that,” Inhofe says. “Are we teaming up with the very people we’re fighting in Afghanistan — al-Qaeda?” Inhofe also questions whether Obama has thoroughly planned resources for the mission after a series of “downgrades” of the military. For instance, the mission uses C-17s, Inhofe says, a program that Obama has stopped, “one of the worst things he’s done.”

Excerpt: Read More at Hot Air