Exclusive Interview With Saif Gadhafi

Exclusive: Saif Gadhafi 'Surprised' by Coalition Attack, Says Americans Supporting Terrorists

'There Is a Big Misunderstanding,' Saif Gadhafi Tells ABC News' Christiane Amanpour

In an exclusive interview with ABC News "This Week" anchor Christiane Amanpour, Saif Gadhafi, son of Libyan leader Col. Moammar Gadhafi, expressed surprise at the Western coalition attacklaunched against Libya, and said that his father has no plans to step down from power.

"Yesterday, we were surprised that ... the Americans and the British and the French attacked Libya, attacked five cities. Terrorized people, and especially children, women, were so afraid yesterday," Saif Gadhafi said. "So it was big surprise that finally President Obama -- we thought he was a good man and friend of Arab world -- is bombing Libya."

He denied the Libyan government had continued attacks against resistance forces in Benghazi, telling Amanpour the city was controlled by "terrorists" and "armed militia" who are attacking civilians and the Libyan army.

"Our people went to Benghazi to liberate Benghazi from the gangsters and the armed militia," Gadhafi said. "If the Americans want to help the Libyan people in Benghazi … go to Benghazi and liberate Benghazi from the militia and the terrorists.

"No country in the world will allow the second-largest city to be controlled by gangsters and armed militia," he added. "Of course not."

Gadhafi dismissed the notion that his father would step down from power because of the air strikes against Libya.

"Step aside, why?" Gadhafi said when pressed by Amanpour. "Again, there is a big misunderstanding. The whole country is united against the armed militia and the terrorists. Simply the Americans and the other Western countries, you are supporting the terrorists and the armed militia. That's it."

Gadhafi said Americans will regret the military action against Libya, comparing Western support for opposition forces in Libya to inaccurate claims of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq before war began there in 2003.

"It's like the WMD, the fiasco of WMD," Gadhafi said. "WMD in Iraq, and armed militia in Libya. You would understand that in Libya it's not about peaceful demonstrations or people talking about democracy. ...We are fighting the terrorists."

Exclusive Amanpour Interview With Saif Gadhafi

"And one day they will regret this, because … one day they will find that they were supporting the wrong side," Gadhafi said of the Western coalition leaders. "And those people are the enemies of the Americans, of the Libyans, of the whole world. Those are the enemies of everybody. "You should support the Libyan people, the ordinary people, the civilians, not the armed militia."

Gadhafi said that Libyans were "angry" with Americans for the air strikes, but denied that there would be Libyan retaliation against Western targets, including commercial flights around the Mediterranean.

"No, this is not our target," Gadhafi said. "Our target is how to help our people in Libya, especially in Benghazi," he said. "Believe me, they are living a nightmare. A nightmare, really."

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Interview With Adm. Mike Mullen

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff discusses the military operation in Libya.

Adm. Mullen: U.S. Pursuing 'Limited Objectives' in Libya

French and Libyan Diplomats Argue That Gadhafi Must Go

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By IMTIYAZ DELAWALA

WASHINGTON, March 20, 2011

The United States is focused on "limited objectives" as part of the coalition enforcing a no-fly zone over Libya, and will take a "supporting role" in the coming days, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen said today.

"The French were the first ones in yesterday, in terms of starting to establish the no-fly zone. The United States is taking the lead in terms of the coalition," Mullen told ABC News' "This Week" anchor Christiane Amanpour this morning. "And we look to, in the next few days, transition that to a coalition leadership."

Mullen said getting the no-fly zone in place "has been successful so far," taking out Libya's air defenses, and limiting Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's ability to fly planes or continue marching forces toward the rebel-held Benghazi.

"We're very focused on the limited objectives that the president has given us and actually the international coalition has given us, in terms of providing the no-fly zone so that he cannot attack his own people, to avoid any kind of humanitarian massacre, if you will, and to provide for the humanitarian corridors, humanitarian support of the Libyan people," Mullen said.

Mullen did not say that removing Gadhafi from power was a direct objective of the no-fly zone, and would not speculate on the length of time needed for coalition forces to operate.

"I think circumstances will drive where this goes in the future," Mullen said. "It's had a pretty significant effect very early in terms of our ability to address his forces, to attack his forces on the ground, which we did yesterday outside Benghazi, and get the no-fly zone stood up."

In contrast, France's ambassador to the United Nations, Gerard Araud, said Gadhafi's removal was an objective of French support for a coalition attack on Libya, adding that the "moral and human reaction" to Gadhafi's attacks on Libyan citizens drove their leadership of coalition efforts.

"It was impossible to consider a victory of Gadhafi and Gadhafi taking Benghazi," Araud told Amanpour. "He was saying that they will search house by house. He was referring to rivers of blood. It was simply totally impossible to accept it.

Some Push for Gadhafi to Go

"We want the Libyan people to be able to express their will," Araud added. "And we consider that it means that Gadhafi has to go."

Ali Suleiman Aujali, the former Libyan ambassador to the United States who resigned to join the opposition to Ghadafi's regime, agreed that removing Gadhafi from power was a central mission.

"Protection of the Libyan civilian [is] only achieved by one goal, that Gadhafi is not there, not only by stop his airplanes striking the people," Aujali said. "The dangers is Gadhafi himself.

"If this is not the mission, then they would just hit some airplane -- shot the airplanes down and then leave us this madman, killing his people without mercy," Aujali added.

Can Libya Strike Back Against U.S.?

Mullen said he does not believe Libya has a strong enough military capability to retaliate against the United States or its allies in the region, saying that the past 24 hours have shown that Libya has "not been a very effective force."

"He still has some surface-to-air capability, where he could attack an aircraft, including one of ours. We haven't seen large-scale indications of that after the action yesterday," Mullen said. "He clearly has the ability to continue to attack his own people, and we're very focused on that, and trying to ensure that his military forces don't do that."

Former Bush administration Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff told Amanpour that while Gadhafi may pose some threat, his capabilities are limited.

"I think you have to assume there's an increased risk is the sense that Gadhafi is a proven terrorist, and it's wise to assume that he's got the intent at some point to do something to retaliate," Chertoff said. "But I think his capability has been much degraded… I think his capability in the U.S. is not that great."

But he cautioned that the threat should still be taken seriously.

"He's like a cornered rat," Chertoff said. "And a cornered rat will do whatever it has to do in order to defend itself or to strike back. So while right now my suspicion is they have their hands full, it's certainly something – it's prudent to consider that he may seek to divert attention or even to push back by striking someplace else."

Gadhafi 'Will Never Give Up'

Former Clinton administration energy secretary and ambassador to the United Nations Bill Richardson echoed the concern, saying he believes Americans flying in the Mediterranean "should be extra cautious" given Gadhafi's involvement in the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988.

"He's very unpredictable -- he's almost a wild man right now," Richardson said. "I don't want to be an alarmist, but when a man is cornered who is desperate, who wants to cling on to power, who sees his base narrowing, who is attacked, could be capable, as he has in the past, very horrendous things."

French ambassador to the U.N. Araud said the coalition considered the risks, but says he believes Gadhafi is "prone to empty rhetoric."

"When you enter a military intervention, it's never risk-free. So we have to be careful and to consider all the dangers," Araud said.

But former Libyan ambassador Aujali cautioned that Gadhafi is not likely to back down, and will have to be forced out by a rebel forces taking over Tripoli.

"I think there is one thing in the mind of Gadhafi, that he will not step down at all. He will fight until the end," Aujali said. "He will fight. He will fight. He has no other choice. He has no shelter to go. And this is his ... attitude. He will never give up."

Anti-American Extremists Among Libyan Rebels U.S. Has Vowed To Protect

David WoodHUFFPOST REPORTING

A rocket launcher in the hands of Libyan anti-Gadhafi rebels is positioned at the borders of the eastern town of Brega, Libya Friday, March 11, 2011. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)

Posted: 03/19/11 11:58 AM

WASHINGTON -- In 2007, when American combat casualties were spiking in the bloodbath of the Iraq War, an 18-year-old laborer traveled from his home in eastern Libya through Egypt and Syria to join an al Qaeda terrorist cell in Iraq. He gave his name to al Qaeda operatives as Ashraf Ahmad Abu-Bakr al-Hasri. Occupation, he wrote: “Martyr.’’

Abu-Bakr was one of hundreds of foreign fighters who flocked into the killing zones of Iraq to wage war against the “infidels." They came from Saudi Arabia, Syria, Oman, Algeria and other Islamic states. But on a per capita basis, no country sent more young fighters into Iraq to kill Americans than Libya -- and almost all of them came from eastern Libya, the center of the anti-Gaddafi rebellion that the United States and others now have vowed to protect, according to internal al Qaeda documents uncovered by U.S. intelligence.

The informal alliance with violent Islamist extremist elements is a coming-home of sorts for the United States, which initially fought on the same side as the Libyan fighters in Afghanistan in the 1980s, battling the Soviet Union.

According to a cache of al Qaeda documents captured in 2007 by U.S. special operations commandos in Sinjar, Iraq, hundreds of foreign fighters, many of them untrained young Islamic volunteers, poured into Iraq in 2006 and 2007. The documents, called the Sinjar documents, were collected, translated and analyzed at the West Point Counter Terrorism Center. Almost one in five foreign fighters arriving in Iraq came from eastern Libya, from the towns of Surt, Misurata and Darnah.

On a per capita basis, that’s more than twice as many than came from any other Arabic-speaking country, amounting to what the counter terrorism center called a Libyan “surge" of young men eager to kill Americans.

During 2006 and 2007, a total of 1,468 Americans were killed in combat and 12,524 were badly wounded, according to Pentagon records.

Today, there is little doubt that eastern Libya, like other parts of the Arab world, is experiencing a genuine burst of anti-totalitarian fervor, expressed in demands for political freedom and economic reforms. But there also is a dark history to eastern Libya, which is the home of the Islamic Libyan Fighting Group, an anti-Gaddafi organization officially designated by the State Department as a terrorist organization.

The group was founded by Libyan mujahideen returning in the mid-1990s from Afghanistan, where they had gone to fight the Soviets’ Red Army. Building on a radical Islamist credo, they organized to fight the secular corruption of the Gaddafi regime. In 1996 they nearly succeeded in assassinating Gaddafi by attacking his motorcade with either a bomb or a rocket-propelled grenade which missed its target. The attack led to a severe crackdown by the regime. Many were imprisoned or disappeared, but the CIA still regards the group as one of the many franchises of al Qaeda, including al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which operates in Yemen, and al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, which is active in Algeria and elsewhere in North Africa.

Eastern Libya has been described by U.S. diplomats as a breeding ground for Islamist extremism. In diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks, the region’s young men were said to have “nothing to lose" by resorting to violence. Sermons in the local mosques are “laced with phraseology urging worshippers to support jihad," one diplomat reported.

U.S. officials declined to discuss the make-up of the anti-Gaddafi forces in eastern Libya, and U.S. intelligence agencies declined to comment publicly. To be sure, extremist elements make up only a portion of the resistance to Gaddafi and have been present in every popular uprising in the region stretching from the Iranian revolution to the Egyptian people’s overthrow of Hosni Mubarak. But others caution that in the chaotic jockeying for power that will ensue, whether or not Gaddafi is forced from power, eastern Libya’s extremist groups will emerge.

“Lingering civil conflict in Libya (certain to happen if Gaddafi clings to power) would create ample ground for radicalization and extremist recruitment," Yasser al-Shimy, an Egyptian diplomat who defected during the last days of the Mubarak regime, wrote recently. Protracted civil conflict “usually induces radicalization and chaos. In other words, Libya might turn into a giant Somalia: a failed state on Egypt's borders with radical groups taking advantage of the mayhem," al-Shimy wrote in the blog, Best Defense. Or as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Friday about the immediate future of Libya: “We don’t know what the outcome will be."

If its Sunday, Its Meet the Press Sunday March 20, 2011

Sunday: Admiral Mike Mullen

Ali Al-saadi / AFP/Getty Images

The U.S. and European allies begin strikes in Libya to stop Moammar Khaddafy’s attacks against civilians.  The very latest on the military campaign from the president’s top military advisor, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen. What are its goals? Does this mean the U.S. and its allies are at war?  What will the extent of U.S. involvement be? What happens if Khaddafy digs in and refuses to step down?  Is stability in Libya vital to U.S. interests?  

 

Also: Levin, Sessions, Kerry

An escalation in Libya as a new UN resolution lays the groundwork for military strikes by allowing the international community “to take all necessary measures” to protect civilians. With the strikes underway, should the president have sought congressional approval?  And with the U.S. already involved in two wars in two different countries,  what does military action in a third country mean?  We talk to the top foreign policy voices on Capitol Hill: two members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Chairman Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) and Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) as well as the chairman of the Foreign Relations

Roundtable: Mitchell, Miklaszewski, Cooper, Hayden, Haass

 

It’s been a little over a month since the wave of revolution crashed in Libya.  What ignited Saturday’s decision for the U.S. and allies to strike? The latest reporting on how the president’s inner circle convinced him to mobilize from NBC’s Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent Andrea Mitchell, NBC’s Chief Pentagon Correspondent Jim Miklaszewski, and the New York Times’ Helene Cooper.  Plus insights on what the conflict could mean for the U.S. militarily and the president’s agenda from former CIA Director, Gen. Michael Hayden and president of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haass.

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