White House laments failure of post-Gadhafi plan in Libya

WASHINGTON, April 12 (KUNA) -- There have been "consequences" for the failure to plan effectively for the situation in Libya after Moammar Gadhafi was removed from power in 2011, White House press secretary Josh Earnest acknowledged on Tuesday.
"The political and security turmoil that we have seen inside of Libya has been tragic," he said during a briefing, noting that innocent lives have been lost, including some Americans who were serving in Libya.
A Government of National Accord in Tripoli is beginning to establish "its rightful role" as the government of Libya, "but that has been a long-running process," Earnest said When Gadhafi was removed after 42 years in power, there was no structure to try to preserve order until a new leader could be selected, Earnest said.
"It just meant that the government, and to a large extent the civil society in that country, just disintegrated," he said. "And trying to rebuild all of that from scratch has been a painstaking effort, particularly when the people in that country are enduring the influence and destabilizing activities of extremists that are operating in their country." The United States will continue to play an important role in preventing the so-called Islamic State from establishing a new safe haven in Libya that it could use to carry out attacks in the United States or in the nations of US allies, Earnest said.
"But we have got a lot of work to do to try to bring the situation in Libya under control. It will not be a military solution, it will be a political solution, much like the one that we have seen make some progress in the last few weeks." A variety of militia groups across Libya make unifying the security presence in that country "rather challenging," he said. US military activity in Libya "will be responsive to the threat that we face there," and that is why President Barack Obama has ordered military action that, in one case, took out the senior IS official in Libya, and in another case took out a number of IS targets in Libya, Earnest said. (end) rm.ibi