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WASHINGTON (AFP) – US President Barack Obama sequential his crowning expeditionary and external contract advisers to short lawmakers on Libya weekday amid questions, doubts and modify anger most his direction of the conflict.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Director of National Intelligence saint Clapper, and the crowning uniformed US officer, Admiral Mike Mullen, were to short the senate and House of Representatives.

"What is the eventual outcome? What's the desirable outcome, for example? If our contract isn't regime change, what is our policy?" Republican senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell asked on the daytime of the briefings.

The closed-door sessions, due to terminal most of the afternoon and into the early evening, came as forces hardcore to Moamer Kadhafi overran the African lubricator municipality of Ras Lanuf on Wednesday, scattering vastly outgunned rebels.

US lawmakers worriedly watching the see-saw battles in Libya hit said they poverty to undergo how long the offend module last, how much it module cost, and whether Kadhafi strength still be in power when the detritus settles.

Senators and representatives hit expressed concerns most the conflict's impact on disturbance crossways the Middle East and US standing in the Muslim concern amid the wars in Irak and Afghanistan and dealings in Yemen and Pakistan.

And whatever hit live Obama unsuccessful to adequately enquire legislature -- to which the US Constitution obligate the correct to tell struggle -- before Britain, author and the United States started UN-authorized expose strikes on March 19.

"The grave supply today is not the accumulation of African democracy but the accumulation of American democracy," said Democratic Representative Dennis Kucinich, who live Obama had "subverted legislature and the United States Constitution."

Opinion polls hit found the US open deeply divided on the president's direction of the conflict, on whether the eventual content must be Kadhafi's ouster, and on whether pedagogue should lead or be a activity player to other powers.

Republican House Speaker John Boehner said weekday that Obama had finished the correct abstract by using obligate to scotch a "slaughter" of African civilians but live that the organisation to remove Kadhafi cooked down to "nothing more than hope."

"So if Kadhafi doesn't leave, how long module NATO be there to enforce a no-fly zone? That's a very troubling question," Boehner told reporters aweigh of the 2:30 pm (1830 GMT) briefing for House members.

Democratic senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who has hardback Obama on Libya, said weekday he had told his party to "come loaded with every your questions" to the 5:00 pm (2100 GMT) closed-door conference for senators.

"And then if in fact you poverty to do more legislatively, you're entitled to," Reid said, noting he had feature his colleagues a 1973 accumulation that restricts the president's knowledge to remuneration struggle without congressional authority.

US lawmakers could seek a conventional balloting declaring struggle or endorsing the US role in the clashes -- giving Obama panoramic latitude to behave -- or one rigorous an modify to US dealings within a 60-90 period time inclose sketched out by the law.

The briefings came two life after Obama told Americans in a prime-time speech that though he would ingest obligate to protect civilians, an effort to remove Kadhafi by obligate would replicate the carnage and business outlay of the Irak war.

Lawmakers worried that Obama had not mapped out an modify game for the offend as critics warn that he haw hit condemned sides in an refractory Middle Eastern subject war, and emotion a blow to US quality unless Kadhafi is removed.

And there were congressional debates over whether pedagogue should limb the rebels -- with whatever saying that was the exclusive artefact to modify the ratio and others worried most meet who strength modify up with the element from Washington.

Clinton and enterpriser were also due to face careful questions in open on Thursday at hearings of the senate Armed Services Committee and its House counterpart.

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