Muammar Gaddafi - Obama Presidency Oral History Back Muammar Gaddafi Index / People Transcripts Michael Mullen ...to what was going on. And [Muammar al-] Qaddafi , obviously, had been a name fo... ...was going to be the center mass of what Qaddafi was going to do. But sorting that out... ...years that had one leader, and that was Qaddafi , and he was gone. Then, we did—we... ...weapons and the chemical supplies that Qaddafi had, and trying to figure out how t... ...ended up, among other things, killing Qaddafi . To me, that's almost the beginnin... Anne Patterson ...enormous arms caches that [Muammar al-] Qaddafi had squirreled away. They started t... Anne-Marie Slaughter ...stop this now and negotiate it with Qaddafi , because we're flooding the place wit... Samantha Power ...on his people, as we would soon see [Muammar] Qaddafi do, and [Bashar Hafez al-] Assad do... ...Libya is really next. And there, Muammar Qaddafi , of course, Americans, none of us ar... ...dictatorially, and as repressively as Qaddafi had. So that relationship existed, s... ...the bravery of these people.” I mean, Qaddafi is a person who, not that many year... ...to seek to secure his release. And Qaddafi did what so many brutal leaders do... ...would have been a recognition that Qaddafi was even more brutal and prone t... ...saying, “We're no longer loyal to the Qaddafi regime.” And things escalated really... ...quickly on the ground, in terms of Qaddafi 's crackdown. In the opposition, i... ...to believing early that the only way Qaddafi would ever step down would be if eithe... ...there's only one way, given that Qaddafi won't negotiate. So that's the pictur... ...basically threw the kitchen sink at Qaddafi , and let him see that, reall... ...all the dictators of the world backing Qaddafi , and democracy as being on one sid... ...Council resolution, which froze Qaddafi 's assets, asked any country where hi... ...which, if you want to know how despised Qaddafi was in the international system, or ho... ...everything, and in so doing, to leave Qaddafi with the impression that the world wa... ...to the UN. Separately, in parallel, Qaddafi had a lot of money in the Unite... ...to encourage more of that. And Qaddafi not being able to access his ow... ...people, the best scenario would be if Qaddafi were to parachute out of the country... ...governance is going to look like after Qaddafi . I mean, they were really looking a... ...what began to happen is, once Qaddafi regained his bearings, even with thes... ...cases. But the challenge was that Qaddafi 's forces just kept marching, mowin... ...to hundreds of thousands of civilians— Qaddafi basically was on the verge of layin... ...clear that it wouldn't be enough, that Qaddafi just had—not from even outside support... ...Ali did not want to face in Tunisia, Qaddafi —he had no shame. He was Qaddafi. An... ...Qaddafi—he had no shame. He was Qaddafi . And so, in the Situation Room, Obam... ...Syria], threats to American personnel. Qaddafi had posed a threat once, but he ha... ...force of international law behind it, Qaddafi 's planes not to fly, meaning that h... ...militaries to be prepared to shoot Qaddafi 's planes out of the sky, or to signa... ...officers in the room—“What share of Qaddafi 's attacks on civilians are coming fro... ...since where people have written, “Oh, Qaddafi said he was going to hunt everybod... ...The people of Benghazi believed that Qaddafi would massacre them. That's what h... ...they were not going to negotiate with Qaddafi 's regime. This is an importan... ...because there's this scenario of, Qaddafi enters the town, or his forces ente... ...a ton of sexual violence employed by Qaddafi 's militia, and so forth. I think w... ...in Benghazi, or who had experienced Qaddafi 's rule and had risen up and alread... ...that if they entrusted their fates to Qaddafi 's forces, it would mean torture, rape... ...coercive, and no matter what weaponry Qaddafi was able to bring to bear. Why do ... ...bit of insight into that, because Qaddafi was laying waste to the town o... ...Are we right or are we wrong about what Qaddafi is going to do when he wins, but also... ...irrespective of what weaponry Qaddafi was using to target them. At tha... ...through. But you have to plan as if Qaddafi 's not going to heed your ultimatum... ...in being able to take out, for example, Qaddafi 's air defenses in the early days o... ...This was after an ultimatum, and when Qaddafi basically blew off what the Securit... ...forces basically trying to push back Qaddafi 's forces from the areas that they ha... ...of, again, the disparity between Qaddafi 's heavy weaponry, the ground forces h... ...And the sources of the conflict are Qaddafi 's insistence on meeting protests wit... ...many African countries—seek to engage Qaddafi . In our case, through third partie... ...to meet with key officials around Qaddafi outside of Libya. And we're jus... ...the regime and the opposition, or Qaddafi himself will get killed in all of this... ...and even if you're not a fan of Qaddafi , that can be inherently destabilizing... ...none of the actors who engaged Qaddafi or his inner circle had any success i... ...US engaged this operation. But because Qaddafi wouldn't negotiate—because, frankly, o... ...of course, people who also despise Qaddafi , or who had lost loved ones t... ...Qaddafi, or who had lost loved ones to Qaddafi , weren't very eager to negotiate... ...in the interest of Libya as a whole. Qaddafi was the biggest culprit in this, but i... ...to plan properly for the aftermath of Qaddafi 's fall, which occurred in, I think... ...I've just described how unenthusiastic Qaddafi was about the political track, more... ...security presence in Libya after Qaddafi , because his forces would disperse... ...alert to that. But what happened after Qaddafi fell is that Libyans across th... ...had claimed for themselves sovereignty. Qaddafi no longer had authority over them. The... ...more we could have done to engage Qaddafi and his inner circle to somehow chang... ...shows, it's not as if the Libyans, had Qaddafi suppressed the protests, that you g... ...to declare themselves in opposition to Qaddafi —the amount of violence he would hav... ...gone to the Security Council—remember Qaddafi . It was much more stable than it i... ...pre-Arab Spring stability, instead of Qaddafi being able to retrieve that and ge... ...have—or at least prolonged sieges—that Qaddafi would have used to try to recove... ...point, and Obama very alert to what Qaddafi is doing, informing, potentially, wha... ...a handful of cities in mind—then when Qaddafi wasn't prepared ever to cease fire o... ...though the coalition was not targeting Qaddafi per se. But in the end, when the leade... ...got blurred. I'm not sure, given that Qaddafi was not interested in negotiating, ho... Show more... Colin Kahl ...to a test because when [Muammar al-] Qaddafi started going after those rising u... ...taking some military action against Qaddafi 's forces. That ultimately then morphe... Stephen Kroft ...off—that it would lead to the death of Qaddafi and, basically, anarchy in that region... Harold Hongju Koh ...the United Nations— [Muammar al-] Qaddafi started targeting, in the civil war... Jeremy Bash ...about whether to take on [Muammar al-] Qaddafi , whether or not to try to push back o... ...whether or not to try to push back on Qaddafi 's forces in the aftermath of the Ara... ...made, is that right? Or— Well, when Qaddafi was ultimately run out of Dodge, an... ...did accelerate the end of the Qaddafi regime. The Qaddafi regime was going t... ...the end of the Qaddafi regime. The Qaddafi regime was going to be slaughtering it... ...think, give them a couple months, and Qaddafi will be gone.” He was dead right. H... Show more... Samuel Locklear ...anybody. At the time that [Muammar al-] Qaddafi did his thing, on a very shor... ...the initial uprisings in Libya and Qaddafi 's first attacks against civilians... ...legacy and the potential behavior of Qaddafi . I think the president and hi... ...stated that we were going to go after Qaddafi , and we never did do that. We jus... ...I think about at least on the moving Qaddafi out and getting the regime moving in ... ...fifty years. Everybody was reciting Muammar Qaddafi . You mentioned that one of Obama'... ...targets we'd like to go after in the Qaddafi regime. They could be forces in th... ...put out; or they wanted an end and for Qaddafi to not be in power anymore. That wa... ...but you'd get the sense of it. Once Qaddafi was taken and killed, there was ... Show more... 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