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"Well, if it's ordered, we can do it. But the reality is...there's a lot of, frankly, loose talk about some of these military options. And let's just call a spade a spade," he said.
You're probably stalling to try to figure out how to frame a lie, aren't you?
"A no-fly zone begins with an attack on Libya to destroy the air defences. That's the way you do a no-fly zone. And then you can fly planes around the country and not worry about our guys being shot down. But that's the way it starts," Gates said.
Yes. First some troops with laser designators have to sneak in and mark anyone with a slingshot.
"It requires more airplanes than you would find on a single aircraft carrier. It is a big operation in a big country," he told lawmakers.
Yes, if they were a fully functional country. But they're not. Kadaffy is just happy to be alive right now. And they probably only have a couple of airports with fighter jets. Ask the guys in Malta.
Air defences consist of radar and missile threats. Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the Libyans themselves have air capabilities.
And we have HARMs.
"You have to assume -- if you're going to do something like that, you've got to assume it's very capable. Obviously, we know something about their readiness, but you have to assume it's very capable until proven otherwise," he said.
Uh huh. Yeah. Right.
"We've not been able to confirm that any of the Libyan aircraft have fired on their own people. There have been reports of that, but we have been unable, through this morning, to confirm that that's actually happened," he said.
And I think you know what you thought I said but I'm here to tell you that what you think you know about what I thought I said might be the opposite.
Mullen said America's ability to predict historically has been pretty lousy.
Politics will do that.
"Certainly we have been concerned about what has been, I guess, building in the Middle East over time, specifically, but I don't think anybody predicted what would cause it and when it would happen and the speed with which it would happen," he said.
Given present-time Libya, especially with their current distractions, it seems like it would be a walk in the park. Even if we just fly one over occasionally just to make Gadaffy pee his pants and to show our support for the folks on the ground who are braving machine gun fire with rocks and sticks.