Gadhafi Forces Rolling Back; Rebels Reorganize

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Gates: U.S. preparing to cede no-fly control CAIRO -- Defense Secretary Robert Gates acknowledged Wednesday that there is no clear end to the international military enforcement of a no-fly zone over Libya, and says no one was ever under any illusion that the assault would last just two or three weeks. He added that the U.S. could turn over control of the operation as soon as Saturday, but could not say how the coalition operation might be resolved. "I think there are any number of possible outcomes here and no one is in a position to predict them," Gates said in Egypt. Gates also flatly dismissed comparisons of the Libya attacks to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, where nearly 50,000 American troops are still deployed eight years later. The Libyan action, he said, came at the request of Arab nations and was then authorized by the U.N. Security Council. A key difference, he added, is that Obama has vowed there will be no U.S. ground troops in Libya.

BENGHAZI, Libya - NATO ships began patrolling off Libya's coast Wednesday as airstrikes, missiles and energized rebels forced Moammar Gadhafi's tanks to roll back from two key western cities, including one that was the hometown of army officers who tried to overthrow him in 1993.

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Gadhafi Forces Rolling Back; Rebels Reorganize

Libya's opposition took haphazard steps to form a government in the east, as they and the...

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