{"id":52869,"date":"2016-03-12T14:59:12","date_gmt":"2016-03-12T21:59:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=52869"},"modified":"2016-03-12T14:59:12","modified_gmt":"2016-03-12T21:59:12","slug":"distracted-david-cameron-helped-turn-libya-into-a-mess-barack-obama-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2016\/03\/12\/distracted-david-cameron-helped-turn-libya-into-a-mess-barack-obama-says\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Distracted’ David Cameron helped turn Libya into a ‘mess’, Barack Obama says"},"content":{"rendered":"

The US president says the PM’s attention was not held by the conflict for long<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

Courtesy The\u00a0 Independent\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

Barack Obama has accused David Cameron of being distracted\u201d in the aftermath of the invasion of Libya \u2013 contributing to the current deadly mess\u201d in the north African country.<\/p>\n

In a wide-ranging interview<\/a> with The Atlantic<\/em> magazine the US president partly blamed Britain and France\u2019s leaders for the chaotic situation in the country.<\/p>\n

US\u00a0and British airpower helped oust dictator Muammar Gaddafi from power in 2011 \u2013 but an apparent lack of a workable post-conflict planning has seen the Isis militant group take hold in the country\u2019s central costal areas.<\/p>\n

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\"david<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
David Cameron was accused of being distracted by other things<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The internationally recognised Libyan government does not now control the capital Tripoli and various Islamist groups and local fighters control scattered regions and municipalities.<\/p>\n

UN attempts last year to form a national unity government re-uniting the country have so far failed.<\/p>\n

The so-called Islamic State controls the central port of Sirte, the birthplace of Muammar Gaddafi and a former hold-out of regime loyalists.<\/p>\n

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\"20-libya-oil-reuters.jpg\"<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Fire rises from an oil tank in Ras Lanuf, Libya. Attacks against Libya’s biggest oil terminals in recent weeks have been lethal and sustained<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Mr Obama told the magazine that Mr Cameron had stopped paying attention to the conflict after becoming distracted by a range of other things\u201d.<\/p>\n

In March 2011 coalition jets started started enforcing a no-fly zone above Libya.<\/p>\n

The no-fly zone intervention came to an end in November 2011, months ahead of the London Olympics and after a summer of rioting in London.<\/p>\n

The president also reportedly told the magazine that in private he referred to the conflict as a s*** show\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"fears-libya.jpg\"<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Violence and instability in Libya<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

He also recalled telling Mr Cameron that Britain had to pay its fair share\u201d on defence spending and meet a 2 per cent Nato spending target.<\/p>\n

Last year\u00a0a book recounting the recolections of Tory chairman Michael Ancram said the White House had felt “f***ed over” by the PM’s approach to Libya.<\/p>\n

In December 2015, years after the intervention, Mr Cameron told the Spectator magazine that Libya was better off without Gaddafi\u201d.<\/p>\n

What we were doing was preventing a mass genocide. \u00a0Then, as you say, the coalition helped those on the ground to get rid of the Gaddafi regime and it\u2019s very disappointing that there hasn\u2019t been an effective successor regime,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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READ MORE<\/div>\n

‘Incompetent’ Cameron accused of ‘doing an Iraq’ in Libya<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

We did a lot to try and help it, I remember taking the Libyan Prime Minister\u2014as then was\u2014to the G8 meeting in Northern Ireland, getting lots of support but the Libyan political leadership up until now\u2014although there have been some good developments overnight\u2014haven\u2019t been able to put together a comprehensive government.\u201d<\/p>\n

With regards to Mr Obama\u2019s comments to the Atlantic, a Downing Street spokesperson said: I think we would share the President of the United States’ assessment that there are real challenges in Libya, that’s why we are continuing to work hard with our international partners to support a process in Libya that puts in place a government that can bring stability to that country and why we are talking about how we can support such a government in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The US president says the PM’s attention was not held by the conflict for long Courtesy The\u00a0 Independent\u00a0 Barack Obama has accused David Cameron of being distracted\u201d in the aftermath of the invasion of Libya \u2013 contributing to the current deadly mess\u201d in the north African country. In a wide-ranging interview with The Atlantic magazine […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52869\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}