Handover of the Libyan Operation by the United States is on hold

The article from the Washington Post has stated what the United Nations authorized for this mission:

Under the U.N. mandate authorizing the mission, international fighter pilots are not permitted to intervene in battles between Libya’s forces and the loosely organized rebels.

How can a pilot from 15,000 feet up determine if they are protecting civilians from Gadhafi's military or are getting involved in a fight between the Government and the Rebels? Getting involved with the United Nations in wars is a huge mistake because of the way they word their resolutions to get enough votes to pass. These leaves you shaking you head. Cannot imagine what members of the military charged with carrying this out thought when they read the rules of engagement. Once again, our military have their hands tied.

We thought this no-fly resolution was not about regime change by Obama and his Secretary of Defense continue to say Gadhafi has to leave. Have they bothered to see who runs the rebels? By some media accounts, it is Jihadists who no one in American leadership should want running the Libyan oil wells.

Now we also learn there is no clear cut path for the United States to hand over leadership of this Operation. Guess the few days of the United States leading the effort may turn into longer because of bickering breaking out over the mission and who should be in charge.

In Libya, new rifts open in international coalition
By Greg Jaffe and Karen DeYoung, Monday, March 21, 9:35 PM

Gen. Carter Ham, the U.S. commander leading the operation, said his mission, which was focused on protecting civilians from attacks by regime loyalists, was “pretty clear.” But executing that mission on an increasingly chaotic battlefield that includes opposition forces, government troops and civilians has proved to be dauntingly complex for military commanders.

Commanders, Ham said, have found themselves in the position of having to distinguish between attacks by regime forces on innocent civilians, who clearly require protection, and pitched military battles between rebels and forces loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi.

Under the U.N. mandate authorizing the mission, international fighter pilots are not permitted to intervene in battles between Libya’s forces and the loosely organized rebels.

Ham, the head of U.S. Africa Command, acknowledged that making distinctions between fighters and civilians from the vantage of a plane streaking across the sky at 15,000 feet presented risks.

“These are situations that brief much better at headquarters than they do in the cockpit of an aircraft,” he said during a briefing for Pentagon reporters.

Coalition aircraft flew about 80 sorties over Libya on Monday, up from 60 sorties one day earlier. About half of those missions were flown by U.S. pilots, a number that should decline in the coming days as more countries join the coalition effort and the no-fly zone expands east toward the Libyan capital, Tripoli.

The confusion over the mission, meanwhile, has spread beyond Libya. On Monday, NATO members bickered over whether what began as a relatively straightforward effort aimed at preventing Gaddafi from launching airstrikes against his people had turned into a more punitive action directed at his military forces, according to a European diplomat.

The disputes appear to have delayed U.S. efforts to turn the command of the operation over to NATO in the next few days. As of Monday evening, it remained unclear when responsibility would shift and who would assume it.

France, which has sought to portray itself as being in the vanguard of the operation, has raised concerns that Arab states will not participate in the operation if it is led by NATO. Turkey, which abstained from voting on the U.N. resolution, has said it sees no role for NATO.

(snip)

Ham, at the briefing, conceded that it was possible that the Libyan leader could remain in control of at least some portions of his country at the end of the current operation.

“I could see accomplishing the military mission, which has been assigned to me, and the current leader would remain the current leader,” he said. “Is that ideal? I don’t think anyone would say that is ideal, but I could envision that as a possible situation.”

Excerpt: Read more at Washington Post