US to give Libyan rebels non-lethal aid (AP)
Wednesday, April 20, 2011 12:01 PM By dwi
WASHINGTON – The Obama brass plans to give the African contestant $25 million in non-lethal resource in the prototypal direct U.S. resource to the rebels after weeks of assessing their capabilities and intentions, officials said Wednesday.
Amid a speaking over whether to substance the rebels broader assistance, including change and mayhap weapons and ammunition, the brass has conversant legislature that President Barack Obama intends to use his so-called "drawdown authority" to give the opposition, led by the Transitional National Council in Benghazi, up to $25 million in nimiety dweller artefact to support protect civilians in rebel-held areas threatened by African leader Moammar Gadhafi's forces.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who advisable that Obama authorize the assistance, said the resource would go to support the council and "our efforts to protect civilians and the noncombatant populated areas that are low danger of attack from their possess government in Libya." She said the resource "will be worn downbound from items already in government stocks that equal with the needs that we hit heard from the Transitional National Council."
Congress was notified in writing of the organisation New terminal week and was briefed in greater detail on weekday by Gene Cretz, the U.S. ambassador to Libya, officials said.
Initially, the brass had proposed supplying the rebels with vehicles and takeout fuel storage tanks but those items were dropped from the list of possibleness resource on Wednesday after concerns were expressed that those could be converted into offensive expeditionary assets, the officials said.
The list is ease being revised but today covers items such as scrutiny supplies, uniforms, boots, tents, personal protective gear, radios and Halal meals, the officials said. Most of the items are expected to become from Pentagon stocks, they said.
"There is an urgency in providing these commodities," the State Department said in a attending dispatched terminal weekday to lawmakers and obtained by The Associated Press.
"This is not a blank check," politico told reporters, adding that the advise was consistent with the U.N. mandate that commissioned planetary action to protect African civilians and acknowledging that the contestant is in dreaded requirement of help.
"This opposition, which has held its possess against a fell assault by the Gadhafi forces was not an organized militia," she said. "It was not a assemble that had been planning to oppose the conception of Gadhafi for years. It was a unprompted response within the context of the broader Arab spring. These are mostly business people, students, lawyers, doctors, professors who hit very bravely moved to indorse their communities and to call for an modify to the program in Libya."
The advise comes as U.S. allies travel up their resource to the rebels, with Britain, author and Italia sending expeditionary advisers amid calls for the U.S. to substance direct resource outside its status in NATO expeditionary operations. author and Italia hit both constituted the Transitional National Council as Libya's legitimate government, something the U.S. has still to do.
White House advise helper Jay Carney said Wednesday that Obama was alive of the allies' selection to beam in advisers "and hopes — believes — that it module support the opposition. But it does not at all change the president's policy on no boots on the connector for dweller troops."
There has been such speaking over whether to cater the rebels with weapons and the officials said that choice remains on the table.
The officials said the non-lethal resource would be monitored to ensure it is utilised properly, though they noted that the items to be dispatched inform a low venture of misuse.
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