Dear Sir/Madam
Discussing President Obama’s 2011 Libya intervention Julian Borger asserts the “US went to the United Nations for backing for military action, but then – in Moscow’s eyes at least – abused the mandate by pursuing regime change” (‘From healthcare to foreign policy – the achievement, and the disappointments’, 4 January).
Readers might like to know the idea regime change became the goal of the West in Libya has more credible supporters than the Russian government.
In the New York Times’s February 2016 series about the Libyan intervention, the US Defence Secretary in 2011, noted that publicly “the fiction was maintained” that the goal was limited to disabling Colonel Gaddafi’s command and control. However, Gates explained “I don’t think there was a day that passed that people didn’t hope he would be in one of those command and control centers.”
Similarly, the September 2016 House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee report into the conflict noted “a limited intervention to protect civilians drifted into a policy of regime change by military means.”
Kind regards
Ian Sinclair
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