Sen. John McCain says President Barack Obama waited too long to impose a no-fly zone over the Libyan skies and if action had been taken sooner it probably would have been enough to stop tyrant

Moammar Gadhafi’s rampage and murder of his own people.
“I hope it’s not too late, and I believe it’s not too late,” McCain said in an interview aired Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “Obviously if we had taken this step a couple of weeks ago a no-fly zone would probably have been enough – now, the no-fly zone is not enough. There needs to be other efforts made.
“And I want to preclude ground troops – the U.S. or allies’ ground troops – that is not what we are talking about – but there’s a whole lot of things that can be done,” said McCain, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee. “Also we’ve got to get our assets over there; our aircraft carriers are a long ways away – aircraft carriers should have been on station a long time ago.”
Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., also a guest on the CNN Sunday show, concurred.
“I think if the world had acted earlier – you know, two or three weeks since the conflict turned bloody is not a long period of time, but in a conflict it’s a long period of time,” Lieberman said. “Gadhafi had such an advantage in terms of logistics, command-and-control weapons, that time helped him every day, while the world refused to make the decision.
“I think earlier on, maybe a no-fly zone could have done it,” he added. “Now it’s clear from the U.N. Security Council resolution that’s passed, that the nations of the world have been authorized by the United Nations to take whatever actions are necessary to protect civilians.”
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.