According to the Ap:

Ap?
Wherever it came from, it was extremely interesting! Thanks.
comments put into the article.


CIA Director Leon Panetta had offered to send CIA personnel covertly to work on the ground in Libya.
A CIA spokesman did not immediately respond to a query on the CIA's role in Libya, which was first reported Wednesday by the New York Times.
Asked by a committee member if there were any U.S. "boots on the ground" in Libya Gates responded: "Not that I am aware of," and then added: "The opposition said they don't want any."

Did they say they wanted covert CIA operations??

Gates then fielded another question about the likelihood of a later deployment of U.S. troops on the ground in Libya.
"Not as long as I am in the job," he replied sharply.
So with no U.S. ground troops in play, the CIA is tasked with gathering intelligence

Meaning everybody have been bombing blindly up to now?

Former CIA officers who have worked on the region said they believed the operatives are gathering intelligence on the Libyan opposition forces, to help better assess who the rebels are and what are their capabilities and organization structures, to inform U.S. decision-making including on possibly training them. Additionally, the former officials say, CIA personnel would be helping identify targets for precision air strikes.

Of course, there's a disconnect between the White House's depiction of the Libyan mission as a bid to stave off a humanitarian catastrophe, and the recent reports suggesting deepening covert U.S. involvement on the ground. But the former senior intelligence official said it would be naive to have believed it would have been otherwise once the first U.S. Patriot missiles exploded in Libya last Saturday.

If that is true, then to my mind it would have been much better if US had stayed out of it.

"It's really simple: we incrementally get involved and [then] don't know what to do," the second former CIA officer said. The Obama administration "really thought a little pressure and he [Gadhafi] will fall."


I think we all did. But that is not reason for CIA to take over the rebellion. It is certainly not going to help.


"Those clowns are not able to do anything effective until they are trained and have new weaponry, " likely from Egypt, the former CIA officer said, referring to the Libyan rebels. He suggested the CIA's ground-branch division, which includes many personnel who have para-military backgrounds, may also "train the Libyan rebels how to fight, how to shoot, how to organize into groups."

They are not soldiers, they are civilians. Such an attitude towards people desperately fighting for their freedom is disgusting, and does not bode well for the result for CIA intervention.


Defense Secretary Gates, a former CIA analyst and CIA director, offered lawmakers three possible scenarios for Libya.

"I think there are several alternative outcomes," Gates told the House panel Thursday. "One is that someone from his military takes him out and then cuts a deal with the opposition. ... Another would be the tribes abandon him and cut their own deals with each other. Another alternative —our preferred option—[is that] these opposition forces and tribes come together and begin to create a democratic state that protects rights of its people."

This analysis have been heard from others as well, together with the ourcome that G wins in the long run.

I think it absolutely important that the Libyans keep their own uprising with minimum help with tanks and air space.