Former Bush administration official Michael O’Brien says that embattled Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s fate will be decided by the West, but punishment will be carried out in Libya.
“Be careful what you ask for, you might get it. Then again – you may not,” he warned. “We will have to wait and see if [the rebels] are just using the West to take over Tripoli and the country and get rid of Gaddafi, and then once that’s done, if they are going to do their own thing and won’t need NATO anymore.”
The former Bush administration official drew a comparison between the deposing of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and the current pursuit of Gaddafi.
“I was there when Saddam was tried and hung,” O’Brien recalled. “My personal feeling is that it wasn’t so much the people of Iraq that tried and hung him. I think he deserved what he got, don’t get me wrong. But I do think the West was very much behind that.”
O’Brien questioned whether Gaddafi being sent to The Hague, as has been suggested will happen if he is indeed captured alive, may not necessarily reflect the sentiments of all Libyans.
“The international court will very much be involved in what’s going to happen when they capture Gaddafi, which I have no doubt they will,” he said. “They’ve already said that they want his sons in their custody. But if Gaddafi is captured and then detained [and sent to] the international court in The Hague… does that mean the people of Libya are going to decide his fate?”