As Pentagon leads Libya air campaign, Obama briefed from Brazil

As President Barack Obama visited Brazil on his first Latin American tour since taking office, it became increasingly apparent Sunday that the Pentagon is taking the lead military role in the initial stages of the international campaign being waged in Libya.

The Pentagon's initiative stands in contrast to Obama's previous remarks, which stressed that he'd authorized the U.S. military to play a limited support role in the international coalition establishing a no-fly zone over Libya to protect civilians from Muammar Gadhafi's attacks.

But a Pentagon official, briefing the press Sunday, indicated that the U.S. military, together with a coalition that currently includes France, the United Kingdom and Italy, has been taking the lead in operations to suppress Libya's air defenses. Those efforts have involved electronically jamming Libyan radars and firing 124 cruise missiles from warships, stealth bombers and fighter jets against Libyan missile sites.

Vice Admiral William Gortney, director of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the United States plans to turn over command of the no-fly zone mission to coalition partners in the coming days. But as yet, he said, the coalition has not determined who its commander will be.

Earlier, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Sunday news shows that he had been instructed by the President to come up with a military plan to implement U.N. Security Council resolution 1973. That declaration calls for Gadhafi's forces to observe a cease-fire and pull back to garrison, and for the protection of civilians from attack using all means necessary short of a ground invasion.

"The whole idea is to put as much pressure on this guy so he doesn't continue to kill his own people, and isolate him internationally," Mullen told NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday.

But the president had not given Mullen an end date for the operation, Mullen said, adding that the instructions to date could make way for Gadhafi to remain in power.

"I've not been given dates by the President when the military mission would end," Mullen told CBS's "Face the Nation." "It's a very complex operation. I got orders to execute it, and I am doing it."

Analysts and lawmakers said the American public is owed more clarity about what Obama envisions the Libya end-game to be.

"With the United States now militarily engaged in Libya, it is imperative that the president refine the nation's objectives more clearly and the means that will be employed to achieve them," wrote Robert Danin of the Council on Foreign Relations. "Failure to clarify them entails running afoul of our coalition partners, a slide into an open-ended military engagement, or an unintended expansion of the mission."

"Before any further military commitments are made, the Administration must do a better job of communicating to the American people and to Congress about our mission in Libya and how it will be achieved," House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) said Sunday.

(President Barack Obama, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, is briefed Sunday on the situation in Libya during a secure conference call with National Security Advisor Tom Donilon, right, and White House chief of staff Bill Daley. On the phone: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Defense Secretary Bob Gates, AFRICOM Commander General Carter Ham, and Deputy National Security Advisor Denis McDonough. Official White House Photo by Pete Souza.)