JCS Speech
s Delivered by Vice Admiral William Gortney , The Pentagon Monday, March 28, 2011
ADM. GORTNEY: Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for being here today. Let me start today with a snapshot of the situation on the ground in Libya. Slide, please. (Article)
Here's how things looked on Friday. Regime forces were outside Ajdabiya, and the city was very much contested. As I briefed you then, the regime was still able to reinforce their positions there. There was also -- they was still inside Misurata and Zintan and showing no sign of relenting.
Next slide, please.
Here's what things look like today. We now assess that opposition forces are in control of Ajdabiya and have pushed west to within 80 miles of Sirte. We believe the regime is preparing to dig in at Sirte, setting up a number of checkpoints and placing tanks throughout the city; likewise for Zintan, where we assess the regime is preparing to reinforce existing positions.
Reporting from Misurata indicates heavy fighting, particularly near the city center. So not too much of a change since I last briefed you. Word has come in to us this morning that the regime is busing reporters out there today. For what purpose, we do not know.
I'm comfortable telling you, however, that we still have not received a single confirmed report of civilian casualties caused by the coalition, and that we will continue to be just as precise as we can in keeping up the pressure on regime forces while protecting innocent civilians. In fact, I'm quite confident that in and around Misurata, regardless of who is there to watch, we have been and we will be effective at hitting exactly what we're aiming at.
That's a good segue to my next slide. I understand we've been keeping you updated with facts and figures over the weekend, so what I'll do here is just cover the last 24 hours.
As you can see, coalition strike aircraft continued to go after targets on the ground, most of which were targets of opportunity, such as the regime forces we hit near Misurata, Sirte and Ras Lanuf.
Six TLAM
cruise missiles were launched from sea last night against the headquarters facility of Gadhafi's 32nd Brigade. This is one of Gadhafi's most loyal units and are also one of the most active in terms of attacking innocent people. We're still awaiting a good assessments of those strikes.
http://www.jcs.mil/speech.aspx?id=1565 (MORE)
AND:::::::::::::::"... from my perspective, I see Iran continuing on this path to develop nuclear weapons and I believe that that development and achieving that goal would be very destabilizing to the region. "
December 18, 2010, U.S. Naval Forces Central Command Headquarters, Manama, Bahrain
http://www.jcs.mil/
do you see what I see?
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