As President Obama and his advisers measured their response to the mass killing in Libya over the past week, they were mindful of one particular scene unfolding thousands of miles away.
The U.S. Embassy and other diplomatic posts in Tripoli, reopened only five years ago, comprise a series of lightly protected compounds and trailers. The guards there were Libyan, not the U.S. Marines posted outside most embassies. And an armed and angry Libyan opposition was approaching the city from the east, as hundreds of Americans awaited evacuation across rough seas.
Administration officials said the diplomats in Tripoli told them that, in the words of one official, "certain kinds of messaging from the American government could endanger the security of American citizens." There were fears that Americans could be taken hostage.
"Overruling that kind of advice would be a very difficult and dangerous thing to do," said Ben Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser for strategic communications.
"That was the debate, and frankly we erred on the side of caution, for certain, and at the cost of some criticism," he continued. "But when you're sitting in government and you're told that ignoring that advice could endanger American citizens, that's a line you don't feel very comfortable crossing."
The Obama administration's quiet response to the atrocities in Libya left even reliable supporters stunned by its lack of force and plodding pace.
But officials now say that their previous public posture belied feverish diplomatic work and a head-versus-heart debate that played out in the White House Situation Room, where the immediate threat to Americans and the far-reaching lessons of the failed international efforts to end violence in Bosnia, Rwanda and Iraq have guided the recommendations the president has received.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/26/AR2011022604172.html?hpid=topnews
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