Score this victory for President Obama: NATO is set to take over the war on Moammar Gadhafi. But nothing about the future command structure has been settled. The only thing certain is that dialing back the American commitment -- while U.S. warplanes continue to attack Gadhafi's ground forces -- is going to be complicated.
As early as this weekend, a new "coalition command structure" can take charge of the war, Vice Adm. Bill Gortney, director of the Joint Staff, told reporters Thursday evening. "This is a complicated process, and to some degree it's being done on the fly," he said.
Now it's time to take the car apart with the engine running. "To work that same command-and-control architecture with different nations in different locations that also still has the connectivity, the IT support, the doctrine worked out, that is still really, really hard work," Gortney said.
The U.S., as expected, will keep its tankers flying for mid-air refueling, and will keep its spy planes in the mix for the long haul. And American fighters will continue make their attack runs for now. Ratcheting back the U.S. commitment to the no-fly zone and attacking Gadhafi's ground forces will be "phased over time," Gortney said, with no clarity on when it'll be finished. "I would anticipate that we would continue to provide some of the interdiction strike packages as well," Gortney added.
And U.S. pilots have been busy. Over the last 24 hours, the coalition flew 130 missions -- 49 of which were "strike-related." That's down slightly from the previous day's 175, but still way higher than Monday's 80. "Roughly half" of them are non-U.S. launched, with foreign pilots taking 75 percent of combat missions now, Gortney said. In addition, 14, Tomahawks got launched, an indication that the U.S. wants to be extra sure that the no-fly zone is impenetrable.
But the big fight remains on the ground. Two days' worth of allied attacks haven't gotten loyalist ground units to pull back from Ajdabiya or Misurata. And Gortney said pilots are under strict instructions not to attack loyalist forces in urban areas, in case they accidentally kill the Libyan civilians that Operation Odyssey Dawn is predicated on protecting.
However, if pilots are able to positively identify "fielded forces" -- tanks, armored personnel carriers, treaded rocket launchers -- without potentially killing civilians, Gortney said, "then we are taking those targets under attack."
Now to see who gets put in charge of the war. The NATO military commander, of course, is Adm. James Stavridis, but it'll be doubtful that another American relieves Adm. Samuel Locklear, the war's current operational chief. Since Stavridis has already put an Italian, Vice Adm. Rinaldo Veri, in the separate mission of enforcing the arms embargo on Libya, he may put a French military commander atop the no-fly. That would give the French the prominence they want -- even if they didn't want the mission to be a NATO one. Building coalitions on the fly is all about the trade-offs.
Photo: Flickr/U.S. Africa Command
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