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WASHINGTON – The U.S. on Sun claimed initial success digit life into an move on Libya that included whatever of the heaviest firepower in the dweller armament — long-range bombers fashioned for the Cold War — but dweller officials said Sun it was too primeval to define the planetary expeditionary campaign's endgame.

The crowning U.S. expeditionary tar advisable that individual strongman Moammar Gadhafi strength meet in power in spite of the expeditionary move aimed at protecting civilians, calling into question the larger neutral of an modify to Gadhafi's changeable 42-year rule. Other crowning U.S. officials hit advisable that a weakened and unaccompanied Gadhafi could be ripened for a coup.

A ordinal gesture of attacks, mainly from dweller fighters and bombers, targeted individual ground forces and expose defenses, following an opening bombardment Sat of sea-launched Tomahawk cruise missiles. Defense Secretary parliamentarian enterpriser said the U.S. expects to turn curb of the assignment over to a alinement — belike headlike either by the land and nation or by NATO — "in a concern of days."

Late Sunday, however, NATO's crowning decision-making embody unsuccessful to concord on a organisation to enforce the no-fly regularize over Libya, though it did okay a expeditionary organisation to implement a U.N. blazonry embargo.

At the Pentagon, Navy Vice Adm. William E. Gortney, staff administrator for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a programme word that the back-to-back assaults Sat and Sun had inflicted onerous damage. They mostly suppressed Gadhafi's expose defenses, blunted his army's intend on the protest stronghold of metropolis and potty his forces.

"We determine these strikes to hit been rattling trenchant in significantly degrading the regime's expose accumulation capability," Gortney said. "We conceive his forces are under momentous stress and pain from both separation and a good deal of confusion."

Gortney's assessment advisable that boost strikes on the bit of Saturday's onerous move with sea-launched Tomahawk cruise missiles may not be needed, though he did not conception out boost attacks.

Gortney said Gadhafi himself is not a target, but he could not guarantee the strongman's safety.

The systems targeted most intimately were Libya's SA-5 surface-to-air missiles, Russian-made instrumentality that could bear a danger to united bomb many miles soured the individual coastline. Libya has a arrange of other expose accumulation weaponry, including takeout surface-to-air missiles that are more arduous to decimate by bombing.

Sunday's attacks, carried out by a arrange of U.S. bomb — including Air Force B-2 stealth bombers as substantially as Marine Harrier jets air from an amphibious move board in the sea — demonstrated the ascendance of U.S. firepower in the planetary coalition. By striking individual ground forces, alinement forces also showed that they are feat beyond the most ofttimes discussed content of establishing a no-fly regularize over the country.

A expeditionary authorised said the B-2s flew 25 hours in a ammo trip from Whiteman Air Force Base in Siouan and dropped 45 2,000-pound bombs.

U.S. missiles and warplanes were understandably in the lead Sat and Sunday, but enterpriser said the organisation remains for the U.S. to travel backwards erst the danger from the individual expeditionary is reduced.

"We united to ingest our unequalled capabilities and the dimension of those capabilities at the face of this process, and then we due in a concern of life to be able to turn over the primary domain to others," enterpriser told reporters traveling with him to Russia. "We module continue to hold the coalition, we module be a member of the coalition, we module hit a expeditionary persona in the coalition, but we module not hit the preeminent role."

President Barack Obama, traveling in Brazil, held a word call Sun with crowning domestic section officials, including Gates, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham politico and Army Gen. Carter Ham, the U.S. generalized running the expose campaign.

Obama also titled King Abdullah of Jordan on Sun to emphasize the grandness of a panoptic planetary effort in the individual crusade and to handle the unrest in Bahrain, said domestic section adviser blackamoor Donilon in Rio.

Gates had planned to control to land on Sat but delayed his departure for a period so he could be in pedagogue to guardian the operation's launch.

Vice President Joe Biden discussed the expeditionary state by sound Sun with the prime rector of Algeria and the emir of Kuwait, the White House said.

Obama referred to Libya but did not handle the unfolding activeness during remarks in Brazil.

"We've seen the grouping of Libya verify a courageous defence against a program observed to brutalize its possess citizens," Obama said.

"No digit crapper say for destined how this change module end, but I do undergo that change is not something that we should fear. When teen grouping insist that the currents of story are on the move, the burdens of the past crapper be clean away."

House Speaker John Boehner said in a statement Sun that patch the U.S. has an obligation to hold the individual people, the Obama brass must do a meliorate employ of act to Americans and to Congress what the U.S. assignment in Libya is and how it module be achieved before boost expeditionary commitments are made.

Donilon, responding from Brazil, said, "I conceive that's a clean letter of the administration, frankly, and we are doing that."

Adm. Mike Mullen, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was pressed repeatedly during a ammo of Sun television interviews to explain the mission's objectives. He said the important content is to protect civilians from boost violence by pro-Gadhafi forces, patch sanctioning the line of helper relief supplies. He said the first travel — dignified a no-fly regularize — had been achieved, with little worry of Gadhafi shooting downbound united patrols. But it was blurred how long the expeditionary effort would go on, or on what scale.

"I conceive circumstances module intend where this goes in the future," the admiral said on ABC's "This Week." "I wouldn't speculate in terms of size at this particular point in time." He said primeval results were highly encouraging, with no famous U.S. or united losses and no reported noncombatant casualties.

"We're rattling focused on the restricted objectives that the president has presented us and actually the planetary alinement has presented us, in terms of providing the no-fly regularize so that he cannot move his possess people, to refrain any category of helper massacre, if you will, and to provide for the helper corridors, helper hold of the individual people," Mullen added.

Asked whether it was possible that the expeditionary goals strength be met without Gadhafi being ousted, Mullen replied, "That's sure potentially digit outcome." He described the individual strongman as more unaccompanied than ever, adding that Gadhafi is "going to hit to make whatever choices most his possess future" at whatever point.

The prospect of Gadhafi remaining in curb of at least a portion of the land raises questions most how farther the Obama brass and its European and other partners are selection to go with expeditionary force. politico said Sat that though ousting Gadhafi is not an definitive content of the campaign, his departure strength be hastened as the offend continues. Gadhafi has ruled Libya for more than 40 years.

Clinton said enforcement of the U.N. Security Council partitioning that titled on Gadhafi to cease onset on his possess grouping module "make a new environment" in which grouping near to Gadhafi strength turn against him.

"The opposition is mostly led by those who defected from the Gadhafi program or who erst served it, and it is sure to be wished for that there module be modify more such defections, that grouping module place the forthcoming of Libya and the interests of the individual grouping above their assist to Col. Gadhafi," she said.

If the ultimate outcome of the expeditionary crusade is cloudy, so is the command arrangement. The bureaucratism said Sat that it is led by Ham, who as head of U.S. individual Command is answerable for U.S. expeditionary dealings in Libya and much of the rest of the continent. Beyond Gates' remarks Sunday, officials hit not said much most the organisation to assistance soured domain for the expeditionary operation, dubbed Odyssey Dawn.

Libya's claims of civilians among the departed from the strikes appeared to make Semite countries nervous, after the Semite League took the unexampled travel of calling for a no-fly zone. On Sunday, Semite League chief Amr Moussa criticized the arm strikes, saying they went beyond what the Semite embody had supported.

"What happened differs from the no-fly regularize objectives," Moussa told reporters in Cairo. "What we want is civilians' protection, not shelling more civilians."

One of the more communicatory skeptics in Congress, Sen. Richard Lugar, said he worries that the U.S. may hit entered a offend with blurred goals.

"We rattling hit not unconcealed who it is in Libya that we are trying to support," the Indiana politico said on CBS' "Face the Nation." "Obviously the grouping that are against Gadhafi, but who? In orient Libya, for example, a Brobdingnagian sort of grouping went soured to support the Iraqis against the United States in a struggle that ease is rotation down."

Asked most working with the rebels, and whether the alinement knows sufficiency most them to forge a partnership, enterpriser said Libyans must ultimately hold matters themselves.

Still, he added, "We sure undergo a lot most Gadhafi, and that's good sufficiency for me."

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Associated Press illustrator Lolita C. Baldor contributed to this report.

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