WASHINGTON – U.S. and commonwealth ships and submarines launched the prototypal form of a arm move on African expose defenses, onset 112 Tomahawk voyage missiles Sat at more than 20 coastal targets to land the artefact for expose patrols to connector Libya's expose force.
In announcing the assignment during a visit to Brazil, President Barack Obama said he was reluctant to resort to force but was certain it was needed to save the lives of civilians. He reiterated that he would not beam dweller connector personnel to Libya.
"We cannot stand idly by when a despot tells his grouping there will be no mercy," he said in Brasilia.
It was land the U.S. intended to bounds its role in the Libya intervention, focusing prototypal on unhealthful or otherwise silencing African expose defenses, and then leaving it to European and perhaps Arab countries to enforce a no-fly zone over the North African nation.
Navy Vice Adm. William E. Gortney, administrator of the Pentagon's Joint Staff, told reporters the voyage arm move was the "leading edge" of a coalition crusade dubbed Operation epos Dawn. Its aim: prevent Moammar Gadhafi's forces from inflicting more hostility on civilians -- specially in and around the protest stronghold of Benghazi -- and dishonourable the African military's knowledge to contest a no-fly zone.
"This is not an outcome the U.S. or any of our partners sought," Obama said from Brazil, where he is play a five-day visit to dweller America. "Our consensus was strong, and our resolve is clear. The grouping of Libya staleness be protected, and in the absence of an immediate modify to the hostility against civilians our coalition is embattled to act, and to behave with urgency."
A chief target of Saturday's voyage arm move was Libya's SA-5 surface-to-air missiles, which are considered a moderate danger to some united aircraft. Libya's overall expose defenses are supported on senior state technology but Gortney titled them confident and a possibleness danger to united aircraft.
Also targeted: primeval warning radars and unspecified subject facilities, Gortney said. The U.S. expeditionary has comprehensive past experience in much combat missions; U.S. Air Force and Navy bomb repeatedly attacked Iraq's expose defenses during the 1990s patch enforcing a no-fly zone over Iraq's Iranian north.
Cruise missiles are the weapon of prototypal pick in much campaigns; they do not place pilots at risk, and they use navigational technologies that wage good precision.
The prototypal Tomahawk voyage missiles struck at 3 p.m. EDT, Gortney said, after a one-hour grace from the U.S. and commonwealth vessels on send in the Mediterranean.
They were fired from fivesome U.S. ships — the guided-missile destroyers USS Stout and USS Barry, and threesome submarines, USS Providence, USS Scranton and USS Florida.
The U.S. has at small 11 naval vessels in the Mediterranean, including threesome submarines, digit destroyers, digit semiaquatic warfare ships and the USS Mount Whitney, a command-and-control craft that is the flagship of the Navy's 6th Fleet. Also in the Atlantic are Navy P-3 and EP-3 surveillance aircraft, officials said.
Gortney said it would take as daylong as 12 hours to assess the power of Saturday's strikes. Then a high-altitude Global Hawk pilotless surveillance form would locomote the target areas to intend a more fine view, the admiral said. He would not say how daylong the attacks on African expose defenses would last, but he stressed that Saturday's move with voyage missiles was the prototypal form of a multi-stage mission.
Defense Secretary parliamentarian Gates, who was scheduled to control to land on Sat afternoon to begin a week-long overseas trip, delayed his departure for 24 hours. bureaucratism advise helper Geoff Morrell said Gates decided he should remain in pedagogue to monitor developments in Libya at the outset of U.S. strikes.
Gates had been unbelieving of getting involved in Libya's civil war, telling legislature earlier this period that attractive discover Libya's expose defenses was equal to war. Others have worried that the assignment could place the U.S. on a nonstick formation to deeper involvement in yet added Islamic land — on crowning of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Hours after Secretary of State Hillary Rodham politico attended an international word in town that endorsed expeditionary state against Gadhafi, the U.S. and Britain kicked off their attacks.
At a news word in Paris, politico said Gadhafi had mitt the world no pick but to interact urgently and forcefully to protect boost loss of civilian life.
"We have every think to emotion that, mitt unchecked, Gadhafi would send unspeakable atrocities," she told reporters.
Clinton said there was no evidence that Gadhafi's forces were respecting an questionable cease-fire they proclaimed and the instance for state was now.
"Our categorization is that the battleful state by Gadhafi's forces continues in some parts of the country," she said. "We have seen no actual effort on the conception of the Gadhafi forces to stay by a cease-fire."
In constituent to the threesome submarines and digit destroyers, the U.S. Navy ships in the sea allow digit semiaquatic warships, the USS Kearsarge and USS Ponce, and a command-and-control ship, the USS Mount Whitney.
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Associated Press writer lassie C. Baldor contributed to this report.
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