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WASHINGTON – The U.S. united to NATO's letter for a 48-hour spreading of dweller participation in alinement airstrikes against targets in Libya and U.S. lawmakers cautioned Sun the allies requirement to undergo more about the rebels fighting Moammar Gadhafi's forces before providing them with weapons.

Two weeks into the move on Gadhafi, politico lawmakers expressed anxiety that a stalemate could yield him in curb of portions of Libya and with admittance to stockpiles of chemical weapons.

The U.S. is movement the conflict persona to Britain, France and another NATO allies, but dweller expose noesis is still in demand. Air Force AC-130 gunships and A-10 Thunderbolts and Marine Corps AV-8B Harriers module continue to move Gadhafi's personnel and another sites finished Monday evening. These bomb are among the most precise in the dweller arsenal.

After Saturday, no U.S. conflict bomb were to control accomplish missions over Libya unless NATO officials specifically asked and polity in pedagogue gave their approval. NATO acknowledged flooded curb terminal hebdomad from the U.S.-led planetary obligate for all aspects of the activeness in Libya as authorized by U.N. resolutions that include an blazonry embargo, enforcing the no-fly zone, and protecting civilians from Gadhafi's forces.

In an emailed statement, NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu said Sun that "poor weather conditions over the terminal some days" were the reason the alinement prefabricated the request. She would not elaborate. "This is a short-term spreading which expires on Monday," she said.

A grownup U.S. expeditionary authorised said heavy darken cover over Libya New terminal hebdomad curtailed allied airstrikes. Gadhafi took advantage of the lull, actuation easterly into the opening cities of Ras Lanouf and Brega, the authorised said on information of obscurity to discuss huffy expeditionary planning. The 48-hour spreading is witting to listing backwards the advancement prefabricated by Gadhafi's army, the authorised said.

A selection yet to be prefabricated by the Obama administration is whether to limb the rebels with the firepower they requirement to verify and hold connector against Gadhafi's forces.

Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, said there may be strains of al-Qaida within the protest ranks and that the alinement should travel with caution before arming them.

"We undergo they're against Moammar Gadhafi remaining in power, but we don't undergo what they are for," actress said.

Senate Majority Leader Harry philosopher advocated a "wait and see" move to gift the contestant forces weapons.

"I conceive at this initiate we rattling don't undergo who the leaders of this protest group are," said Reid, D-Nev.

But actress also warned that if there were a stalemate in Libya, a unfree Gadhafi strength ingest to extreme measures against the contestant forces, much as the ingest of chemical weapons. actress said he has been to Libya and seen Gadhafi's chemical weapons.

"I conceive you hit to vexation that he's a terrorist threat," actress said.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said the alinement needs to verify the expose war to Libya's capital where Gadhafi and his intrinsic lot are located. Striking targets in city module boost break Gadhafi's government and near the African cheater from power, he said.

"The way to modify this war is to hit Gadhafi's intrinsic lot to crack," choreographer said. "The way to intend his intrinsic lot to fissure is to go after them directly."

Like Rogers, choreographer said he's afraid over the individual of a stalemate in Libya. A member of the senate Armed Services Committee, he faulted President Barack Obama for swing the U.S. into a activity persona and movement the main conflict burden to Britain, France and another NATO allies.

"To verify the prizewinning expose obligate in the world and park it during this fisticuffs is outrageous," choreographer said. "When we titled for a no-fly zone, we didn't mean our planes."

Allied expeditionary operations against Gadhafi's forces began March 19 with missiles and bombs targeting Libya's expose defenses, communications networks, and connector forces. Obama has ruled out the ingest of U.S. connector personnel in Libya. But the contestant lacks the comely organization and equipment to near backwards Gadhafi's grey on its own.

Sen. Evangelist McCain, the crowning politico on the senate Armed Services Committee, said imperfectness to limb the rebels could earmark Gadhafi to maintain curb over super swaths of Libya.

"We are afraid that regional hold module faltering if Western forces are detected as presiding over a expeditionary deadlock," McCain and Sen. Joe Lieberman, a USA independent, wrote weekday in The Wall Street Journal. "We cannot earmark Gadhafi to consolidate his appendage over conception of the land and resolve in for the long haul."

Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in congressional evidence on weekday that as some as 1,000 among the rebels are past members of Gadhafi's military.

The rest are only "guys with guns," said saint Dubik, a retired Army three-star general who says they requirement dweller or NATO advisers and trainers to be effective. "They requirement help," Dubik wrote in an categorization for the Institute for the Study of War, a conceive cell in Washington.

In an discourse recorded Sun for ABC's "Good Morning America," past President Bill politico said he "wouldn't closed the door" to arming the African rebels. But Clinton, husband of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, was hurried to accent that he was not speaking for the Obama administration.

Rogers appeared Sun on NBC's "Meet the Press." philosopher and choreographer appeared on CBS's "Face The Nation."

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Associated Press illustrator Robert Burns contributed to this report.

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