Special Briefing

Senior Administration Official

Via Teleconference
March 27, 2011

OPERATOR: Thank you all for standing by. Welcome to our

conference. At this time, your lines have been placed on listen-only for
today’s conference. During the question-and-answer portion of our call,
you will be prompted to press *1 on your touchtone phone. Please be
sure to record your name plus affiliation to ask your question. The
conference is also being recorded and if you have any objections, you
may disconnect at this time.

I will now turn the conference over to Mr. Mark Toner. Sir, you may
proceed.

MR. TONER: Thank you and thanks to everyone for joining us on a

Sunday afternoon. As many of you already know, NATO allies decided
to take on the civilian protection piece of UN Security Council
Resolution 1973, in addition to providing command and control to the
no-fly zone, and enforcing the arms embargo.

And here to walk us through today’s decision and some of the aspects
moving forward to give us perspective is [Senior Administration
Official]. And just going forward, this call is on background and he will,
from here on out, be known as Senior Administration Official.

So without further ado, [Senior Administration Official], do you want to

go ahead and --

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Absolutely. Thanks, Mark and

thanks all for joining us. As those of you who were on the call on
Thursday may remember, at that point I mentioned that we had a
political agreement to put the entire military aspects of UNSCR 1973
under NATO command and control to make it a NATO mission. That’s
what we now did formally this evening here in Brussels.

From this moment on forward, NATO will be in command not only of

the no-fly zone, not only of enforcing the arms embargo, but now also
of the civilian protection mission. When you think about it, for an
organization of 28 states, getting to consensus given where we were
just a few days and weeks ago, we moved with extraordinary speed.
Ten days ago is when the UN enacted its Security Council resolution
that provided for the no-fly zone and the enforcement of the arms
embargo and the civilian protection. And it’s just eight days ago that
military operations started.

But today, we did – the President said we wanted – he wanted to do

when we were going to do it. We were going to take the lead in the
initial period, providing our unique capabilities to shape the battlefield,
but then within days, we would hand over control of that operation to
others. And that’s what we accomplished today in NATO with all 28
allies now agreeing that not only the no-fly zone, not only the arms
embargo, but also the civilian protection mission would come under
NATO – under NATO command, under NATO control, and on NATO
political guidance.

So that’s the important message of what we did today, and I think at

this point, I’d be happy to take some questions.

MR. TONER: Great. Operator, we’re ready to take questions.

OPERATOR: Thank you. At this time, if you would like to ask a

question, please press *1 on your touchtone phone. Please be sure to
record your name and affiliation to ask your question. Once again, it is
*1 and please record your name and affiliation at this time.

Our first question comes from Elise Labott with CNN. Your line is open.

QUESTION: Thank you for doing this, [Senior Administration Official].

Can you talk about the rules of engagement in terms of when it goes
beyond the no-fly zone and protecting the civilians? Is that done by the
commander of NATO who – and will there be separate commanders for
the no-fly zone and the kind of no-fly plus aspects of this?

And we’ve been hearing a little bit about caveats that some nations
will have to participate in some operations or all operations. Can you
talk a little bit about that? Thanks.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Absolutely. Thanks, Elise. The

rules of engagement were agreed today first by the military committee
and then by the North Atlantic Council. So we have a set of rules of
engagements. They have been agreed. And now it’s over to the
commanders to implement the mission within those rules of
engagement as best as they can agree.

The fact is that every country agreed to these rules of engagement, as

you have in every military operation. We’re not going to come back to
the NAC or to any political decisions about how and when we’re going
to implement the mission. This is now over to the commanders within
the rules. Those rules allow for the continuation of the mission as it has
been conducted, which is the implementation of UNSCR 1973 – no
more, no less. And I must say we had no debates, frankly, about the
rules of engagement.

In terms of the commanders, the – this mission will come under the
same command structure and the same command arrangements as
the no-fly zone. Indeed, what we did is we changed and amended the
existing no-fly zone plan to include the mission for civilian protection.
So we’re still operating under the same plan with the same
commander (inaudible). The Supreme Allied Commander Europe
General – Admiral Jim Stavridis is in charge and the – as he is of all
NATO operations. And the joint task force commander is a three-star
from – general from Canada, General Charles Bouchard. He is in charge
of all aspects of the NATO operation, including the arms embargo.

With respect to caveats, I think the way to look at it is that not every
country within NATO will contribute to every part of the mission. Some
countries don’t have air forces. In fact, some countries don’t have
militaries, like Iceland, so it is impossible for them to participate in the
civilian protection mission. And a variety of countries have decided
that they will contribute in different ways. Some will contribute in the
arms embargo, some with the no-fly zone, some in the civilian
protection mission. And that’s the way alliances operate. It’s why you
want to do this in an alliance so you can bring together the collective
capacity of the alliance in order to fulfill the entire mission across the
spectrum of operations.

QUESTION: But just – a quick follow-up, just to put the finest point on
it possible, there’s no nation that can object to these kind of additional
measures in terms of air strikes on troops? And basically, just not
every country has to participate in that; is that --

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Correct.

QUESTION: -- a good way of looking at it?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Yeah. I mean, the way to put

it is that we have made a decision that this is a mission that NATO is
taking on. It is now over to the commanders and the individual troops
to fulfill that mission in – within the agreement that we reached at 28.
And some countries have decided that they may not participate in all
aspects of the mission, but NATO as a whole, working with partners
from around the world, including from the region, will fulfill the entire
mission and will do so in a coordinated and single command-and-
control manner.

QUESTION: Okay. Thanks.

MR. TONER: Next question.

OPERATOR: Our next question comes from Ilhan Tanir with Turkish
Press. Your line is open.

QUESTION: [Senior Administration Official], I had a quick follow-up on

the same question, actually. We know that there were strong Turkish
objections to the aerial bombing under Qadhafi’s forces. How did you
overcome these objections at this moment?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: We frankly didn’t hear of any

objections; what we – from Turkey or anybody – any other ally. What
we heard was a strong preference, one that was shared by Turkey, to
have the entire operation – the no-fly zone and the civilian protection,
as well as the arms embargo and support for humanitarian assistance –
to have all of that conducted by NATO. That was Turkey’s position, it
was the position of a lot of countries, and that is, in fact, the position
that the North Atlantic Council took today.

From this one moment on forward, the entire operation with respect to
military – the use of military force will be under NATO command. That
is Turkey’s position. It is now the position of all 28 nations in NATO.

QUESTION: I’m going to do one more quick follow-up and please

forgive me for my ignorance. Does it mean that in an event that NATO
commanders decide to take a target on Qadhafi forces, all the
members, the NATO members, have to agree on every single attack?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: No, it doesn’t mean that. It –

what it means is that NATO has agreed to take on the mission of
protecting civilians, and that mission will be executed in the – by the
commanders in the best way they judge possible. It means, in practice,
that NATO will conduct the military operation in a way that is very
similar to the way the coalition has conducted it up to this point, and
no more but also no less.

And we – all 28 allies, every single one, agreed that that should be the
case. And if it is judged by the commanders that there’s a need to
bomb forces of the Libyan regime, then the forces of the Libyan regime
will be bombed, and no one is going to be able or in a position to
challenge that. That is a military judgment to be made by the military
authorities, and we, as an alliance, agreed today to give the supreme
allied commander of Europe that authority.

QUESTION: Thank you.

MR. TONER: The next question.

OPERATOR: Our next question comes from Mary Beth Sheridan

with The Washington Post. Your line is open.

QUESTION: Thanks. Thanks a lot, [Senior Administration Official]. I

just wanted to make sure I understood when you talk about the civilian
protection mission – we’ve obviously seen this in action in terms of
troops – regime troops and tanks and so on being targeted outside of, I
think, Misrata, Ajdabiyah and so on. But how far does it go? In other
words, were the rebels – if the rebels arrive at (inaudible), if they arrive
at the outskirts of Tripoli, would all those places also be covered in this
civilian protection mandate?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Well, the mandate is very

simple. It is to protect civilian and civilian-populated areas from attack.
And any forces that are attacking or threatening to attack civilians will
be subject to targeting by NATO in exactly the same way they’re
subject to targeting by the coalition today, or up to this point.

So the mission is clear. It’s about protecting civilians and civilian-

populated areas against the threat of actual attack. And that mission,
which was the same mission that existed from last Saturday until this
point, is the mission that NATO now takes on. It will do so with the
same means – no more, no less. The specific question of where, how,
when military forces may be engaged are operational questions that
the military commanders will have to decide on a case-by-case basis,
and certainly not something that some – a political person or a
diplomat like me is going to get involved in.

MR. TONER: Great, next question.

OPERATOR: It comes from Courtney Kube with NBC News. Your line is
open.

QUESTION: Hi, thank you for doing this. I’m sorry, I’m still unclear on
two things – the command structure and also the – protecting the
civilian population. So in the command structure, is it fair to say that
Admiral Stavridis is now taking essentially the role that General Ham
has been playing?

And then also, specifically on the protecting civilian population, you’ve

said several times now that there will be no more and no less as far as
who is involved. As far as assets, I’m assuming you mean enforcing
these – the no-fly zone and whatnot. But does that mean the U.S. is
still going to be participating, actively participating, in both air strikes
and enforcement of the no-fly zone flying missions over Libya?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Thanks, Courtney, for your

question because that allows me to clarify something that’s important.

First on command and control, you’re exactly right. We’re moving from
Admiral – from General Ham to Admiral Stavridis. General Ham was the
coordinator of the coalition. As the President said, we want to hand off
that responsibility to others. Today, we agreed to hand it off to NATO,
and the NATO – commander of NATO is the supreme allied
commander, and he is now tasking his Joint Task Force Commander,
General Bouchard, to take control of this mission. And it’s General
Bouchard who’s going to run this operation from here on forward.

On the protection of civilians and when I say “No more, no less,” what I
mean is not – has no relationship to who will do it, but what we will do.
So it was not meant to be in any way a comment on who would do it.
When I say under NATO we’re going to do no more and no less than we
did under the coalition, it’s with respect to which targets to hit, how to
hit them, and what the mission is.
In terms of the assets, one of the reasons you want to put this into
NATO is that you will be able to rely on a great deal, a great number of
allies who, up to this point, while wanting to participate in the
operation, were unwilling to do so until it came under NATO. And there
are a number of allies who have made very clear that they will
participate, but they wouldn’t participate as part of the coalition. And
indeed, there were a number of coalition partners who said this has to
come under NATO and it has to come under NATO quickly.

So what we will see now is more countries participating, and that will
allow the United States to be part of a much larger effort rather than
having to take the lead. That’s why we wanted to hand it off in a
matter of days, and we have now done that.

QUESTION: Will those more countries participating include more Arab

participation?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: We will seek as many Arab

and regional partners to participate, and we’re continuing the process
of engaging with Arab countries to bring them into this operation. One
of the advantages of using NATO is that NATO has established
procedures, established practices of working with non-NATO countries,
including many in the Arab world, in order to bring them into
established operations. So they have a political visibility on what’s
happening as well as military participation. And I would expect that in
the coming days and weeks, we will see more and more non-NATO
members joining this effort.

QUESTION: Thank you.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: You’re welcome.

MR. TONER: Our next question, and I think we’ve got time for just a
couple more.

OPERATOR: It comes from Margaret Warner with PBS NewsHour. Your

line is open.

QUESTION: Hi, [Senior Administration Official]. Thank you for doing

this. I want to go back to Mary Beth’s question because it seems to me
there is a difference between whether the rebels are on defense, which
is where they have been, say, in Ajdabiyah, and if they go on offense.
Say if they go to Sirte, we’re there, the government forces are the ones
who hold the civilian-populated area and the attackers, if you will, will
be the rebels, or if they were to get to Tripoli. In that situation where
rebels are on offense against civilian-populated areas held by the
government, will they get an assist from NATO bombing?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I’ll answer, Margaret, the

same way as I did for Mary Beth, which is our mission is to protect
civilians against the threat or actual use of military force. So when
civilians are being attacked or threatened to be attacked, those who
are doing the attacking or threatening are the ones who are going to
be subject to military action.

It’s been very clear up to this point that it is the regime of Colonel
Qadhafi that is engaged in horrendous acts against civilians, and
therefore, it is those forces that are being targeted. But the mission is
clear. It’s about the protection of civilians and civilian-populated areas.
It is not anything more or anything less than that. And as long as
civilians are being threatened, as long as civilians are being attacked,
there is a very legitimate military mission, which is to make sure that
those who are doing the attacking or those who are doing the
threatening are being – are unable to continue their actions.

QUESTION: But if I can follow up, I mean, that still doesn’t really
answer my question. If you’re in a situation in which it is really the
rebel army against Qadhafi forces and civilians are not directly
involved or targeted at that moment, are you assisting the rebels?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Well, I’ll answer the same

way, and I think that will explain it. When civilians are attacked, those
doing the – those attacking the civilians are a legitimate target and will
be targeted by NATO. If there is a threat to attack civilians and civilian-
populated areas, that is what we will go after. So civilians need to be
threatened or attacked for NATO to take military action, as indeed the
coalition has done so up to this point. That’s the mission we have had
up to this point, and that’s the mission that NATO is now taking on. It’s
the same mission in the same way.

QUESTION: All right.

MR. TONER: Thank you. This is --

QUESTION: Would you say civilians in Sirte are being threatened or

attacked?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Sorry, Margaret, I didn’t hear

it.

QUESTION: Would you say civilians in Sirte currently are being

threatened or attacked?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I don’t follow the operational

details, so I don't know exactly where we are on this, and I’d leave that
open to the commanders. They’ve got a clear mission and they need –
now need to execute it.

MR. TONER: Thank you. This will be our last question.

OPERATOR: It comes from Adam Levine with CNN. Your line is open.

QUESTION: Hi, thank you for doing this. If I could follow up, so are you
saying that if rebels are advancing and they (inaudible) an activity that
threatens or endangers civilians by starting fighting, rebels are fair
targets for the alliance?

And my – just another question also: How will NATO coordinate or

interact with the rebel groups?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Right now, all the threatening

and striking of civilians is being done by Qadhafi forces, and that’s the
focus. But our mission is clear. It’s about protecting civilians first and
civilian areas. That – first and foremost, and that’s what it’s about. And
NATO has just taken on that mission.

In terms of coordinating with rebel forces, no, our mission is to protect

civilians. It’s not about the rebels. It’s about the protection of civilians
and civilian populations. That’s what UNSCR 1973 mandated and that’s
the mandate that NATO is now taking on.

MR. TONER: Great. Well, thank you all so much and especially to our
Senior Administration Official for walking us through this decision
today. Everybody have a good remainder of their Sunday and thank
you again.

OPERATOR: That does conclude today’s conference call. We thank

you all for participating. You may now disconnect and have a great rest
of your day.