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The country is struggling with civil war, two governments (the Tripoli-based government (General National Congress (GNC)) and the Tobruk-based government (Elected parliament), insurgencies in oil fields, and low oil prices. Libya relies on oil for 98 % of its exports and fiscal revenues (Figure 8). The Tripoli-based government produced 500,000 barrels of oil a day in 2015 and exported almost 450,000 b/d. Two separate budgets were approved in 2015: the Tripoli based government approved a budget of about 42.9 billion LYD with exports of half a million b/d of oil (more than half of its exports in 2012) with a price of $50 a barrel. Public sector wages and salaries and food and fuel subsidies constitute more than half of the spending in the budget. As the pressure from low oil prices kicked in, the GNC decided to reform the huge food and fuel subsidies, replacing them with monthly cash transfers in the amount of 50 Dinars ($36.5) for each citizen. But the idea was rejected by the Parliament.

In response to low oil prices, some austerity measures have been taken, but at the same time the government is rewarding public employees in the education sector with 300 Dinars ($219) in extra pay. Public sector wages and salaries, and subsidies account for half of the governments expenses. The fiscal deficit has reached a record high, estimated at 60 % of GDP in 2016. The Tripoli government has resorted to the Central Banks reserves which have been falling to $70 billion in 2016 from $120 billion in 2012. If the trend continues, Libya will run out of reserves in less than 4 years. The rival government in Tobruk resorted to borrowing from the Central Bank. The Libyan Dinar is under significant pressure from low export revenues due to cheap oil and lower oil production and the international sanctions on exportation of dollar currency to Libya since 2013. The Libyan Dinar is traded at the black market rate for almost three times the official rate at the Central Bank.

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How is Libya Reacting to Low Oil Prices? - World Bank

The cost of the political conflict has taken a severe toll on the Libyan economy, which has remained in recession for the third consecutive year in 2015. Political strife, weak security conditions, and blockaded oil infrastructures continue to constrain the supply side of the economy. Production of crude oil fell to around 0.4 million barrels per day (bpd) or the fourth of potential. The non-hydrocarbon output remained weak due to disruptions in the supply chains of both domestic and foreign inputs, as well as lack of financing. In this context, GDP is estimated to have declined by 10 percent and per capita income has fallen to less than US$ 4,500 compared to almost US$ 13,000 in 2012. Inflation strongly accelerated last year driven by high food prices. Lack of funding to finance imports, especially subsidized food, generated chronic shortages in basic commodities and expansion of black markets activities. This situation was exacerbated by households attempting to stockpile food. Inflation averaged 9.2 percent in 2015, mainly driven by a 13.7 percent rise in food prices. Prices of flour and bread quintupled.

Protracted political standoff, coupled with lower international oil prices and generous subsidies have weakened public finances and external position. Budget revenues from the hydrocarbon sector have fallen to only a fifth of their pre-revolution levels, while spending has remained high. The share of the public wage bill in GDP is astronomic (around 60 percent), mainly reflecting a plethoric public sector. Meanwhile, investments have been insufficient for sustaining adequate public provision for health, education, electricity, water and sanitation services. However, savings have been realized on subsidies thanks to tougher control of the supply chains of subsidized products and lower import prices. Overall, the budget deficit rose from 43 percent of GDP in 2014 to more than 75 percent of GDP in 2015. Being highly dependent on hydrocarbon exports and food imports, Libyas balance of payments suffered in 2015. Representing 97 percent of total exports, oil receipts are estimated to have declined to less than 15 percent of their 2012 level. Meanwhile, consumption driven imports remained high. As a result, the current account swung from balance in 2013 to a deficit estimated at around 76 percent of GDP in 2015. To finance these deficits, net foreign reserves are rapidly being depleted.

Improvement of the economic outlook depends crucially on the endorsement by the House of Representatives of the Government of National Accord (GNA) formed under the auspices of the UN. The economic and social outlook assumes that the GNA is eventually empowered to restore security and launch a comprehensive program to rebuild the economic and social infrastructures. In this context, GDP is projected to increase strongly in 2016. However, the twin deficits will prevail as oil revenues will not be sufficient to cover the high budget expenditures and consumption-driven imports. Over the medium term, as oil production returns to full capacity, growth is projected to rebound at two digit growth rates in 2017 and 2018, before stabilizing thereafter between 5 and 6 percent.

Libya Public Finance

Figure 1 below provides a snapshot of 2012-2015 Libyan national budget. During the 2010-2013 period, the executed budget did not typically exceed the overall amount authorized by parliament, but its composition substantially differed from that of the approved budget. The overall rate of budget execution was around 80 percent in 2010 and 2012 and was about 93 percent in 2013. There has been no approved (official) budget over the past two years (2014-2015). In FY2012, development budget spending accounted for slightly more than 52% of all government spending, with wages and salaries comprising 24%. However, over the past several years, development spending has virtually collapsed, comprising an estimated 15% of total government spending in FY2015, down from a budgeted 52% of total budget spending in FY2012.

Although several budgets have been presented by the Tripoli Administration and the HOR (Tobruk, Eastern Administration), the Central Bank of Libya (CBL) did not acknowledge any budget as being the legal, legitimate Libyan budget for FY2015. In effect, neither the budget submitted by rival Parliaments in Tripoli and in the Eastern city of Tobruk have been recognized. The Central Bank of Libya (CBL) has only disbursed funds regarding wages and salaries (Chapter 1); student scholarships abroad; oil/gas sector development; electricity (chapter 3); and, essential subsides items (Chapter 4).

Immediate challenges are to manage fiscal spending pressures while restoring and improving basic public services. A longer term goal is to help develop the framework and institutions for a more diversified market-based economy, broadening the economic base beyond the oil and gas sector. Although the Banks post-conflict engagement was initially expected to accompany only Libyas short term economic recovery efforts, the transition program will lay the foundation for longer term goals. This includes creating a more vibrant and competitive economy with a level playing field for the private sector to create sustainable jobs and wealth. It also includes transforming the management of oil revenues to ensure they are used in the best interests of the country and to the benefit of all citizens equally. This will also ensure that citizens have a role in defining and voicing their communities best interests.

Last Updated:Mar 31, 2016

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Libya Overview - World Bank

The area is also close to major oil fields that were crippled by violent ethnic feuding in 2015.

I wouldnt say this is the beginning of a wider campaign, Col. Mark Cheadle, the Africa Commands chief spokesman, said in an email. But, he added, If we find targets we can strike, and it is appropriate to do so, I think we would certainly consider the option.

Colonel Cheadle said that Mr. Dawud was a significant fixer for Al Qaeda. Other American military officials said that Mr. Dawud had been under surveillance for a significant period of time but gave no details about how he was tracked to a house and killed with another Qaeda fighter. The command said that no civilians were believed to have been killed in the attack.

The State Department said in 2016 that Mr. Dawud was a specially designated global terrorist. He began engaging in terrorist activity as early as 1992, the State Department said at the time.

Pictures in Libyan news outlets showed a mutilated corpse lying in the rubble of a house and a pair of shrapnel-ridden vehicles nearby. Residents were quoted as saying that the house had been frequented by foreigners.

The strike came as the Trump administration has been reassessing the American military commitment in North and West Africa after an ambush in Niger in October that killed four American soldiers. The Pentagon has been preparing to fly armed drone missions from Nigers capital, Niamey, a step that diplomats and analysts say could further widen the Pentagons shadow war in that part of the continent.

The American military is also building a $100 million drone base in Agadez, north of Niamey, that is set to begin operations this year.

In a sign of how the Pentagon has sought to obscure its operations in Libya and other parts of northwestern Africa, the Africa Command initially did not announce the strike. It responded to questions from The New York Times late Saturday with a terse statement after news reports about the strike circulated in Libya.

The command on Wednesday identified Mr. Dawud as the target of the attack and confirmed his death after operational reporting and an analysis of the strikes damage was complete.

Questions about whether the American military, under the Trump administration, is blurring the scope of operations in Africa were raised this month when it was revealed that the U.S. had carried out four airstrikes in Libya from September to January that the Africa Command did not disclose at the time.

The commands statement, coupled with Colonel Cheadles comments, left little doubt that American airstrikes could soon expand in southern Libya.

Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, such as ISIS, have taken advantage of undergoverned spaces in Libya to establish sanctuaries for plotting, inspiring and directing terror attacks, the statement said. Left unaddressed, these organizations could continue to inflict casualties on the civilian populations and security forces, and plot attacks against U.S. citizens and allied interests in the region.

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American Drone Strike in Libya Kills Top Qaeda Recruiter ...

Newly disclosed emails show that Libyas plan to create a gold-backed currency to compete with the euro and dollar was a motive for NATOs intervention.

The New Years Eve release of over 3,000 new Hillary Clinton emails from the State Department has CNN abuzz over gossipy text messages, the who gets to ride with Hillary selection process set up by her staff, and how a cute Hillary photo fared on Facebook.

But historians of the 2011 NATO war in Libya will be sure to notice a few of the truly explosive confirmations contained in the new emails: admissions of rebel war crimes, special ops trainers inside Libya from nearly the start of protests, Al Qaeda embedded in the U.S. backed opposition, Western nations jockeying for access to Libyan oil, the nefarious origins of the absurd Viagra mass rape claim, and concern over Gaddafis gold and silver reserves threatening European currency.

A March 27, 2011, intelligence brief[archived here] on Libya, sent by long time close adviser to the Clintons and Hillarys unofficial intelligence gatherer, Sidney Blumenthal, contains clear evidence of war crimes on the part of NATO-backed rebels. Citing a rebel commander source speaking in strict confidence Blumenthal reports to Hillary [emphasis mine]:

Under attack from allied Air and Naval forces, the Libyan Army troops have begun to desert to the rebel side in increasing numbers. The rebels are making an effort to greet these troops as fellow Libyans, in an effort to encourage additional defections.

(Source Comment: Speaking in strict confidence, one rebel commander stated that his troops continue to summarily execute all foreign mercenaries captured in the fighting).

While the illegality of extra-judicial killings is easy to recognize (groups engaged in such are conventionally termed death squads), the sinister reality behind the foreign mercenaries reference might not be as immediately evident to most.

While over the decades Gaddafi was known to make use of European and other international security and infrastructural contractors, there is no evidence to suggest that these were targeted by the Libyan rebels.

There is, however, ample documentation by journalists, academics, and human rights groups demonstrating that black Libyan civilians and sub-Saharan contract workers, a population favored by Gaddafi in his pro-African Union policies, were targets of racial cleansing by rebels who saw black Libyans as tied closely with the regime.[1]

Black Libyans were commonly branded as foreign mercenaries by the rebel opposition for their perceived general loyalty to Gaddafi as a community and subjected to torture, executions, and their towns liberated by ethnic cleansing. This is demonstrated in the most well-documented example of Tawergha, an entire town of 30,000 black and dark-skinned Libyans which vanished by August 2011 after its takeover by NATO-backedNTC Misratan brigades.

These attacks were well-known as late as 2012 and often filmed, as this report from The Telegraph confirms:

After Muammar Gaddafi was killed, hundreds of migrant workers from neighboring states were imprisoned by fighters allied to the new interim authorities. They accuse the black Africans of having been mercenaries for the late ruler. Thousands of sub-Saharan Africans have been rounded up since Gaddafi fell in August.

It appears that Clinton was getting personally briefed on the battlefield crimes of her beloved anti-Gaddafi fighters long before some of the worst of these genocidal crimes took place.

The same intelligence email from Sydney Blumenthal also confirms what has become a well-known theme of Western supported insurgencies in the Middle East: the contradiction of special forces training militias that are simultaneously suspected of links to Al Qaeda.

Blumenthal relates that an extremely sensitive source confirmed that British, French, and Egyptian special operations units were training Libyan militants along the Egyptian-Libyan border, as well as in Benghazi suburbs.

While analysts have long speculated as to the when and where of Western ground troop presence in the Libyan War, this email serves as definitive proof that special forces were on the ground only within a month of the earliest protests which broke out in the middle to end of February 2011 in Benghazi.

By March 27 of what was commonly assumed a simple popular uprising external special operatives were already overseeing the transfer of weapons and supplies to the rebels including a seemingly endless supply of AK47 assault rifles and ammunition.

Yet only a few paragraphs after this admission, caution is voiced about the very militias these Western special forces were training because of concern that, radical/terrorist groups such as the Libyan Fighting Groups and Al Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) are infiltrating the NLC and its military command.

Though the French-proposed U.N. Security Council Resolution 1973 claimed the no-fly zone implemented over Libya was to protect civilians, an April 2011 email[archived here] sent to Hillary with the subject line Frances client and Qaddafis gold tells of less noble ambitions.

The email identifies French President Nicholas Sarkozy as leading the attack on Libya with five specific purposes in mind: to obtain Libyan oil, ensure French influence in the region, increase Sarkozys reputation domestically, assert French military power, and to prevent Gaddafis influence in what is considered Francophone Africa.

Most astounding is the lengthy section delineating the huge threat that Gaddafis gold and silver reserves, estimated at 143 tons of gold, and a similar amount in silver, posed to the French franc (CFA) circulating as a prime African currency. In place of the noble sounding Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine fed to the public, there is this confidential explanation of what was really driving the war [emphasis mine]:

This gold was accumulated prior to the current rebellion and was intended to be used to establish a pan-African currency based on the Libyan golden Dinar. This plan was designed to provide the Francophone African Countries with an alternative to the French franc (CFA).

(Source Comment: According to knowledgeable individuals this quantity of gold and silver is valued at more than $7 billion. French intelligence officers discovered this plan shortly after the current rebellion began, and this was one of the factors that influenced President Nicolas Sarkozys decision to commit France to the attack on Libya.)

Though this internal email aims to summarize the motivating factors driving Frances (and by implication NATOs) intervention in Libya, it is interesting to note that saving civilian lives is conspicuously absent from the briefing.

Instead, the great fear reported is that Libya might lead North Africa into a high degree of economic independence with a new pan-African currency.

French intelligence discovered a Libyan initiative to freely compete with European currency through a local alternative, and this had to be subverted through military aggression.

Early in the Libyan conflict Secretary of State Clinton formally accused Gaddafi and his army of using mass rape as a tool of war. Though numerous international organizations, like Amnesty International, quickly debunked these claims, the charges were uncritically echoed by Western politicians and major media.

It seemed no matter how bizarre the conspiracy theory, as long as it painted Gaddafi and his supporters as monsters, and so long as it served the cause of prolonged military action in Libya, it was deemed credible by network news.

Two foremost examples are referenced in the latest batch of emails: the sensational claim that Gaddafi issued Viagra to his troops for mass rape, and the claim that bodies were staged by the Libyan government at NATO bombing sites to give the appearance of the Western coalition bombing civilians.

In a late March 2011 email[WikiLeaks copy here], Blumenthal confesses to Hillary that,

I communicated more than a week ago on this storyQaddafi placing bodies to create PR stunts about supposed civilian casualties as a result of Allied bombingthough underlining it was a rumor. But now, as you know, Robert gates gives credence to it. (See story below.)

Sources now say, again rumor (that is, this information comes from the rebel side and is unconfirmed independently by Western intelligence), that Qaddafi has adopted a rape policy and has even distributed Viagra to troops. The incident at the Tripoli press conference involving a woman claiming to be raped is likely to be part of a much larger outrage. Will seek further confirmation.

Not only did Defense Secretary Robert Gates promote his bizarre staged bodies theory on CBS News Face The Nation, but the even stranger Viagra rape fiction made international headlines as U.S. Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice made a formal charge against Libya in front of the UN Security Council.

What this new email confirms is that not only was the State Department aware of the spurious nature of what Blumenthal calls rumors originating solely with the rebels, but did nothing to stop false information from rising to top officials who then gave them credence.

It appears, furthermore, that the Viagra mass rape hoax likely originated with Sidney Blumenthal himself.

[1] The most comprehensive and well-documented study of the plight of black Libyans is contained in Slouching Towards Sirte: NATOs War on Libya and Africa (publ. 2012, Baraka Books) by Maximilian Forte, Professor Anthropology and Sociology at Concordia University in Montral, Qubec.

This article was originally published at theLevant Reportand has been used here with permission.

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Hillary Emails Reveal True Motive for Libya Intervention ...

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Five years ago this month, the United States and allied nations began bombing Libya, striking forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. The Obama administration said the strikes were needed to enforce a no-fly zone and to protect Libyan protesters who took to the streets as part of the Arab Spring. Inside the Obama administration, there was a deep division over whether the U.S. should intervene militarily. One of the most hawkish members of Obamas Cabinet was Hillary Clinton, then the secretary of state.

The New York Times has just published two major pieces [part one, part two] looking at Clintons role pushing for the bombing of Libya. The special report is titled The Libya Gamble. In a moment, well be joined by Scott Shane, one of the reports co-authors, but first a video package produced by The New York Times.

JO BECKER: Hillary Clintons role in the military intervention that ousted Muammar Gaddafi in Libya is getting new scrutiny as she runs for president. The U.S. relationship with Libya has long been complicated. Colonel Gaddafi, who ruled from 1969 until 2011, was an eccentric dictator linked to terrorism. Still, when he gave up his nuclear program a decade ago and provided information about al-Qaeda, he became an ally of sorts. In 2009, when Mrs. Clinton was secretary of state, she welcomed one of Colonel Gaddafis sons to Washington.

SECRETARY OF STATE HILLARY CLINTON: We deeply value the relationship between the United States and Libya.

JO BECKER: But two years later, when Colonel Gaddafi threatened to crush the Arab Spring protests in Libya, she helped persuade President Obama to join other countries in bombing his forces to prevent a feared massacre.

SECRETARY OF STATE HILLARY CLINTON: This operation has already saved many lives, but the danger is far from over.

JO BECKER: The military campaign ended up ousting Colonel Gaddafi, and Secretary Clinton was welcomed to Libya on a victory tour. A few days later, Colonel Gaddafi was killed by opposition fighters.

SECRETARY OF STATE HILLARY CLINTON: We came, we saw, he died.

JO BECKER: But the new Western-backed government proved incapable of uniting Libya. And in the end, the strongmans death led to chaos. When four Americans were killed by terrorists in Benghazi in 2012, it revealed just how bad things had gotten. Colonel Gaddafis huge arsenal of weapons has shown up in the hands of terrorists in places like Gaza, Syria, Nigeria and Mali. Hundreds of thousands of migrants have fled through Libya on boats. Many have drowned. And the power vacuum has allowed ISIS to build its most dangerous outpost on the Libyan coast. Today, just 300 miles from Europe, Libya is a failed state. Meanwhile, back at home, Mrs. Clinton has struggled to defend the decision to intervene.

HILLARY CLINTON: But Im not giving up on Libya, and I dont think anybody should. Weve been at this a couple of years.

MARTHA RADDATZ: But were mistakes made?

HILLARY CLINTON: Well, theres always a retrospective to say what mistakes were made. But I know that we offered a lot of help, and I know it was difficult for the Libyans to accept help.

AMY GOODMAN: That video by The New York Times accompanies a major two-part series [part one, part two] on Hillary Clinton titled The Libya Gamble, written by Jo Becker and Scott Shane. Scott Shane is joining us now from Baltimore. Hes also author of a new book called Objective Troy: A Terrorist, a President, and the Rise of the Drone, about the first American deliberately killed in a drone strike, Anwar al-Awlaki. The book just won the 2016 Lionel Gelber Prize.

Scott Shane, welcome to Democracy Now! Lets start with this two-part series, Clinton, 'Smart Power' and a Dictators Fall. Talk about Hillary Clinton as secretary of state and how she led the charge, or what she advised President Obama in Libya.

SCOTT SHANE: Well, five years ago, there werethere was a question about what to do as Gaddafis forces approached Benghazi. The Europeans and the Arab League were calling for action. No one really knew what the outcome would be, but there was certainly a very serious threat to a large number of civilians in Benghazi. But, you know, the U.S. was still involved in two big wars, and the sort of heavyweights in the Obama administration were against getting involvedRobert Gates, the defensive secretary; Joe Biden, the vice president; Tom Donilon, the national security adviser.

And Secretary Clinton had been meeting with representatives of Britain, France and the Arab countries. And she sort of essentially called in from Paris and then from Cairo, and she ended up tipping the balance and essentially convincing President Obama, who later described this as a 51-49 decision, to join the other countries in the coalition to bomb Gaddafis forces.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, Hillary Clinton has argued, in her defense, that its still too early to tell what the effects of the intervention have been, and that perhaps accounts for why shes pushing for more military involvement in Syria. But Obama, on the other hand, as you point out in your piece, says the Libya experience has made him question each military intervention by asking, Should we intervene militarily? Do we have an answer for the day after? So, Scott Shane, can you lay out what you explain happened in Libya the day after, as it were?

SCOTT SHANE: Well, you know, for a few months, it looked like things might go reasonably well. There was some attention to restoring Libyas oil industry. And the optimism was based in part on the idea that this is a relatively small country population-wise, about 6 million people. It did not have the Sunni-Shia split that you see in many Muslim countries, and it had plenty of money from oil to rebuild. So, briefly, there was this sort of moment of optimism. And Secretary Clinton made her visit. And they wereyou know, her people were actually thinking this would be perhaps a centerpiece of her record as secretary of state.

But what happened was the militias that had participated in the fight against Gaddafi, you know, essentially aligned with different tribes in different cities, and it proved impossible for these mostly Western-educatedin some cases, somewhat detachedopposition leaders to pull the country together, and eventually it sort of dissolved into civil war.

AMY GOODMAN: You sayin that piece we just heard, the tape that caught Hillary Clinton saying, We came, we saw, he died. Explain.

SCOTT SHANE: Well, you know, in some ways, I think she would see that as unfair. She was giving a series of TV interviews, and that was in a break between interviews. The reporter for the next take was just sitting down in the chair, and an aide handed her a Blackberry with the news that Gaddafiyou know, first reports that Gaddafi might be dead. And that was her sort of, I think she would say, you know, exaggerated, humorous reaction. But, you knowbut it did capture, I think, the fact that she had become very involved in this effort that firstthat sort of began as protecting civilians and sort of evolved into overthrowing Gaddafi. And she was eager to see an end to what had become a surprisingly drawn-out affair, given the fact that this very large alliance of NATO and Arab countries were on the rebels side. So I think she was relieved and pleased that Gaddafis rule was over and that he was no longer around to make trouble.

AMY GOODMAN: During the Democratic presidential debate in New Hampshire last year, ABC News host Martha Raddatz questioned Hillary Clinton about her support for the 2011 invasion of Libya, which toppled Muammar Gaddafi.

MARTHA RADDATZ: Secretary Clinton, I want to circle back to something that your opponents here have brought up. Libya is falling apart. The country is a haven for ISIS and jihadists, with an estimated 2,000 ISIS fighters there today. You advocated for that 2011 intervention and called it smart power at its best. And yet, even President Obama said the U.S. should have done more to fill the leadership vacuum left behind. How much responsibility do you bear for the chaos that followed elections?

HILLARY CLINTON: Well, first, lets remember why we became part of a coalition to stop Gaddafi from committing massacres against his people. The United States was asked to support the Europeans and the Arab partners that we had. And we did a lot of due diligence about whether we should or not, and eventually, yes, I recommended, and the president decided, that we would support the action to protect civilians on the ground. And that led to the overthrow of Gaddafi.

I think that what Libya then did by having a full free election, which elected moderates, was an indication of their crying need and desire to get on the right path. Now, the whole region has been rendered unstable, in part because of the aftermath of the Arab Spring, in part because of the very effective outreach and propagandizing that ISIS and other terrorist groups do.

MARTHA RADDATZ: Senator Sanders?

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: The truth is, it is relatively easy for a powerful nation like America to overthrow a dictator, but it is very hard to predict the unintended consequences and the turmoil and the instability that follows after you overthrow that dictator. So, I think Secretary Clinton and I have a fundamental disagreement: Im not quite the fan of regime change that I believe she is.

AMY GOODMAN: Im not quite the fan of regime change that she is, says Bernie Sanders in that debate with Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire. Scott Shane, from Iraq and her vote for the war with Iraq, which of course did lead to regime change, to Libya, talk about the goal of Hillary Clinton and whether that was even different from the goal of President Obama, who she does wrap herself around now in all of her presidential campaigning.

SCOTT SHANE: I think what we found is that there is a subtle but distinct difference between President Obama and Secretary Clinton on the question of sort of activism and interventionism abroad. And, you know, in a situation like Libya, there are no good choices. Its certainly conceivable that if she had tipped the other way, and the U.S. and the Europeans and others had not gotten involved, that perhaps Gaddafi would have slaughtered a whole lot of civilians, and we would be, you know, posing different questions to her today.

But, you know, what we found was that President Obama is, not surprisingly, very shaped by the Iraq experience, which hes had to cope with the still ongoing aftermath of the decision to invade in 2003 all these years later. She, of course, has been in government longer, and I think sheyou know, her aides say that she was also influenced by genocide in Rwanda, which taught her the cost of inaction in a situation like that, and by the experience in the Balkans, which sort of cut both ways. But, you know, I think she drew the lesson that intervention could prevent even larger massacres and do some good, as imperfect as the outcome was there. So they kind of look back to these different historical experiences and draw different conclusions.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, you report in your piece in the Times that shortly after the air campaign began in 2011, there was the possibility of a 72-hour ceasefire, potentially leading to a negotiated exit for Gaddafi. Why was that offer not taken seriously by the American military?

SCOTT SHANE: Well, you know, there werethere was a whole array of attempts to come up with some sort of soft exit for Gaddafi. Perhaps he would stay in Libya, perhaps he would go elsewhere. But I think the bottom line was that the Americans and the Europeans and the other Araband the Arab countries that were involved in this, all basically felt that Gaddafi, who was basically a megalomaniac, who had been in office for 40 years and sort of saw him as the savior of his country, just would not, when push came to shove, be willing to cede power. And they felt that any kind of ceasefire, he would use just to kind of regroup his forces and extend the fighting. Whether that was true or not, you know, history will judge.

AMY GOODMAN: And the issue of this being a failed state right now and Hillary Clintons responsibility hereof course, as is President Obama, but she was the secretary of state who was advising him, meeting with people on the ground, making her suggestions on pushing forward with war?

SCOTT SHANE: Yeah, I mean, you know, one reason we did that series is that it appears that interventionwhen, how and whether to intervene in other countries, particularly Muslim countriesremains sort of a pressing question for American presidents. And since shes running for the presidency, this is, you know, perhaps a revealing case study of how she comes out in these situations.

But, you know, there arethere is no good example of intervention or non-intervention in these countries since the Arab Spring and before that. I mean, you have Iraq, where we spent years occupying, a very tragic outcome. You have Libya, where we intervened but did not occupy and pretty much, you know, stayed out of it afterwardsnot a good outcome. And you have Syria, where we have really not intervened, have not occupied, and youve had this terrible civil war with huge casualties. So, you know, some people in Washington are questioning whether there is any right answer in these extremely complicated countries in the Middle East.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, given the spread of ISIS in Libya, you report that some of Obamas top national security aides are now pushing for a second American military intervention in Libya.

SCOTT SHANE: Yeah, I mean, one of the ironies here is that, you know, youve almost come full circle, but instead of targeting Gaddafi and Gaddafis forces, the U.S. is now targeting ISIS. And theyou know, in that debate, Martha Raddatz uses the number 2,000 ISIS fighters; now its up to 5,000 or 6,000. You know, on the coast of Libya, they have formed the most important outpost for the Islamic State outside Syria and Iraq, and the Europeans and the Americans are very worried about it. So, there was actually an airstrike on an ISIS camp in western Libya, where there were Tunisians responsible for some attacks in Tunisia, and now theyre looking at possible attacks on the major ISIS stronghold in Libya, which is in Sirte on the coast.

AMY GOODMAN: In your piece, you talk about the memo afterwards that highlights Hillary Rodham ClintonHRC, as its putrole, talking about her leadership, ownership, stewardship of this countrys Libya policy from start to finish, with an eye to the presidential campaign. Can you talk about this, as you put it, this brag sheet?

SCOTT SHANE: Well, that memo was written in 2011, when Gaddafi had fallen. And, you know, it looked likeyou know, they were holding this up as sort of an alternative to the George W. Bush invasion of Iraq, a coalition in which the U.S. was not even the leader and organizer, really, and it was a very broad coalition of nations that had intervened. They saw this as what she referred to as smart power. And they really thought this might be something they would hold up as a very successful part of her record as she ran for president. As weve seen, that did not happen, and, you know, you dont hear them raise the subject of Libya on the campaign trail at all.

AMY GOODMAN: Scott Shane, we have to end the show, but were going to do Part 2 of our conversation after the show about your new book, Objective Troy: A Terrorist, a President, and the Rise of the Drone. Scott Shane, national security reporter for The New York Times. And well link to this major expos [part one, part two] you did on Hillary Clintons role in The Libya Gamble.

That does it for the show. We have this late, breaking news: Hondurasthe Honduran indigenous and environmental organizer Berta Cceres has been assassinated. She was one of the leading organizers for indigenous land rights in Honduras, winner of the Goldman Environmental Prize.

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The Libya Gamble: Inside Hillary Clintons Push for War & the ...