U.S. senator stresses limits to Libya role

WASHINGTON, March 27 (UPI) -- A key U.S. senator said Sunday it was not up to the United States and its allies to topple Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., said the Western role was to protect civilians from Gadhafi's superior military forces and allow the Libyan population to force their own regime change.

"The people of Libya can remove their dictator," Levin said on CNN's "State of the Union. "We are the ones who are part of an international coalition that are going to prevent him from massacring his own people."

Levin is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, which will hold hearings Tuesday on what currently looks like an open-ended mission for U.S. military forces already engaged in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Levin said U.S. air operations would necessarily have to continue until Gadhafi is removed. "It depends on whether or not the other means, the economic means and the political means, succeed and whether or not the people are able to contain him and ultimately remove him."