Operation Takes Aim at Libyan Air Defenses
By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press ServiceWASHINGTON, March 19, 2011 – Coalition members fired 110 Tomahawk cruise missiles at Libya’s integrated air and missile defense system today as a precursor to setting up a no-fly zone over the country, Pentagon officials said.
Speaking from Brazil, President Obama again stressed that no US ground troops are to be involved, but that the US is providing "unique assets" in support of the UN Resolution 1973.
Navy Vice Adm. William E. Gortney, director of the Joint Staff, briefs reporters at the Pentagon on the launch of Operation Odyssey Dawn, a coalition effort to enforce a no-fly zone in Libya and protect the Libyan people from Moammar Gadhafi’s regime, March 19, 2011. DOD photo by Cherie Cullen
Navy Vice Adm. Wlliam E. Gortney, director of the Joint Staff, briefed reporters at the Pentagon on the launch of “Operation Odyssey Dawn.”
“The goals of these initial operations are essentially twofold: first, to prevent further attacks by regime forces on Libyan citizens and opposition groups, especially around Benghazi, and second, to degrade the regime’s capability to resist the no-fly zone we are implementing under that United Nations resolution,” Gortney said shortly after the attacks were launched.
Most of the targets were on or near the coast and around the Libyan capital of Tripoli, Gortney said. The coalition carefully picked the targets, he added, which either threatened coalition pilots or through use by the regime, posed a direct threat to the Libyan people of Libya....
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