Libyan Conflict Highlights Strains in NATO

By STEVEN LEE MYERS and JUDY DEMPSEY
NYT

BERLIN — NATO’s foreign ministers, showing the strains of fighting two wars at once, tried to play down divisions over the intensity of the air campaign against Libya on Thursday, urging patience and resolve as the alliance carries out what one official called “a significant level” of attacks on Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s forces.

“As our mission continues, maintaining our resolve and unity only grows more important,” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said, responding to the unusually public divisions among NATO leaders over a military operation now nearly a month old. “Qaddafi is testing our determination.”

As if to prove the point, Libya’s state television showed Colonel Qaddafi riding through the capital, Tripoli, in an open-topped sport utility vehicle. Presumably he did so in defiance of new NATO strikes there on Thursday, although NATO officials have said repeatedly that they are only defending civilians, and that the Libyan leader is not a target.

While NATO leaders meeting in Berlin said they were united in forcing Libya’s military to end its assaults on civilians in rebellious cities — and ultimately in forcing Colonel Qaddafi to leave power — rifts remained over how to accomplish those goals.

(More here.)