NATO: Gadhafi Forces ‘Severely Weakened’

Insists Regime Can't Launch 'Credible Military Offensive'

Speaking today in comments from the war’s headquarters in Italy, NATO’s Libya War commander Canadian Lt. General Charles Bouchard declared that the Gadhafi forces ‘continue to be weakened, both in strength and their will to fight.”

Bouchard went on to insist that the regime’s troops are now so weakened that they “are no longer able to launch a credible offensive.” Indeed this appears to be the case, as the Gadhafi forces have not launched an offensive of serious size in many weeks.

At the same time it doesn’t seem that the rebels are doing any better, with several optimistic offensives ending in dreadful failures. This has led to the conclusion, repeated for months, that the war is stalemated.

And of course the Gadhafi forces inability to launch offensives into enemy territory does not seem to translate into an inability to defend their own territory. Officials continue to tout the weakness of the regime as “progress” but they still concede that there is no end in sight.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.