It’s NATO’s Problem Now
The BBC reported that Nato takes over Libya no-fly zone
[NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh] Rasmussen said all Nato members had agreed to the move, including Turkey, which had expressed doubts over strikes on a fellow Muslim country.
“The fact is that in Nato we take all decisions by consensus and the decision we are taking today to enforce a no fly zone is also taken by a consensus which means that all 28 allies support that decision,” he told the BBC.
…The US initially agreed to lead enforcement of the UN resolution, but made clear it wanted only a limited role and would hand over responsibility as soon as possible.
The US will supply support functions, but those will be limited. The 17th Air Force is a tanker/transport outfit. The 6th Fleet is the USS Mount Whitney, a command and control vessel, and a destroyer squadron. The combat stuff is returning to normal duties. The only deployment is the USS Bataan, a landing assault ship, which has an outstanding record of providing humanitarian assistance after Katrina and the earthquake in Haiti. They were already scheduled to make a cruise in the Med and left a little early from Virginia.
Most of the cost will come out of the training budget, and this will probably be logged as a joint NATO exercise. The US runs joint exercises all the time, and they are already budgeted for, so we will skip the next one. As the normal exercises involve larger forces and usually an aircraft carrier, we probably came out money in pocket on this one.
Update: the new commander of the operation is Lieutenant General Charles Bouchard of the Canadian Defense Forces.
2 comments
The Canucks being in charge has to chap some French ass. 😈
There will be a language fight as both will claim that they speak the “real” French. I almost got thrown in jail in France because I was there with a Canadienne in the CDF and a French border guard made a comment about her French. She took umbrage and a great deal of nasty French followed which caused the local constabulary to investigate. She was traveling on NATO orders, which was another problem as France and NATO were not exactly friendly at the time.
To your point, Sarkozy will definitely not be happy about someone who is more French than he is, but isn’t French, has taken his prize. Sarkozy has apparently been polling very badly and really needs a win.