Operation Takes Aim at Libyan Air Defenses

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.

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 (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available.

In Brazil, where he is on the first leg of a three-nation trip to South America, President Barack Obama said no U.S. ground troops will deploy to Libya, but that the United States would provide “unique assets” to enforce the United Nations Security Council resolution meant to protect the Libyan people from the forces of Moammar Gadhafi.

Navy Vice Adm. William 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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