LONDON, March 22 (UPI) -- Western allies debated the language of the U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing the use of force in Libya with divisions emerging on many sides.
The U.N. Security Council last week passed Resolution 1973, which gives the international community a mandate to use all necessary means to protect the civilian Libyan population from forces loyal to Moammar Gadhafi.
British Armed Forces Minister Nick Harvey told the BBC that removing Gadhafi was a "political objective" of the British government but the language of Resolution 1973 only speaks of degrading the military threat to the Libyan people.
"The targets will be the military targets which the coalition identifies as presenting a threat to the Libyan population and anyone who is at those targets ... regrettably becomes a target," he was quoted as saying.
David Richards, the British chief of defense staff, was quoted by The Guardian newspaper as saying Gadhafi wasn't a target, though Foreign Secretary William Hague appeared to suggest the Libyan regime could face military attack.
Meanwhile, U.S. President Barack Obama is under threat from critics who claim he overstepped his authority by committing U.S. forces to the military intervention under way in Libya.
"Such an action lacks legality in the United States and the president should have to answer to that," wrote U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio.
Obama in a letter to congressional leaders, however, maintained that Resolution 1973 provided legal cover for a U.S. role in the fight.
"I have directed these (military) actions, which are in the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States, pursuant to my constitutional authority to conduct U.S. foreign relations and as commander in chief and chief executive," he wrote.
