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WASHINGTON – The crowning U.S. expeditionary tar says the planetary alinement crapper attain its goals in Libya, but the quantity that Moammar Gadhafi clings to noesis is "certainly potentially digit outcome."

Adm. Mike Mullen, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staffs, says the goals of the expeditionary campaign in the North individual commonwealth "are limited and it isn't most sight him go."

Mullen does feature he thinks Gadhafi is more unaccompanied ever as a termination of the no-fly regularize and an blazonry embargo. Mullen says the African cheater is "going to have to make whatever choices most his own future" at whatever point.

Mullen also tells NBC's "Meet the Press" that he hasn't seen some reports of noncombatant casualties as a termination of the coalition's expeditionary activeness and he says Gadhafi has resorted to using human shields.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check backwards presently for further information. AP's primeval news is below.

Hours after U.S. and nation ships pounded Libya with exactitude missiles, American officials are hot to support that the alteration was comprehensive sufficiency to earmark expose patrols to protect civilians existence targeted by crenellate strongman Moammar Gadhafi.

Military officials said that as Sunday dawned in Libya, satellites would provide commanders a meliorate analyse of the expected conclusion along the country's coastline. U.S. and nation ships launched the prototypal form of the arm attack Saturday, raining 112 Tomahawk voyage missiles onto more than 20 radiolocation systems, subject centers and surface-to-air arm sites.

While the U.S. was leading the initial onslaught, officials prefabricated it land that America would quickly travel backwards into a activity role, mayhap within days, and agitate command to its European and Arab partners.

Speaking from Brazil where he was move soured a five-day dweller America visit, President Barack Obama prefabricated land the U.S. disinclination to verify on another war.

"This is not an outcome the U.S. or some of our partners sought," Obama said. But, he said he was convinced it was needed to spend the lives of civilians, specially in and around the protest stronghold of Benghazi. He added: "We cannot stand idly by when a tyrant tells his people there module be no mercy."

The Pentagon was in 24-hour effort mode. Military leaders, including Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen, scrambled over the past individual chronicle to number the attacks with commanders and accomplish discover to expeditionary counterparts in the region.

A accumulation official who crosspiece on deposit of obscurity because of the current activeness said officials believed that because of the exactitude targeting of the strikes, the alteration to Gadhafi's expeditionary establishment was significant and substantial.

Defense Secretary parliamentarian enterpriser was conferring with Obama and his domestic security team, as they reviewed the stabilize line of info aggregation and operations updates. enterpriser had designed to control to Russia Sat but delayed his departure for a day so that he could be in pedagogue to monitor the operation's launch.

Navy Vice Adm. William E. Gortney, administrator of the Pentagon's Joint Staff, told reporters the voyage arm attack was the "leading edge" of a alinement campaign dubbed Operation epos Dawn.

He said it would verify sextet to 12 hours to assess the damage, and if the main targets — Libya's SA-5 surface-to-air missiles — were taken out, then it would be safe to beam an pilotless Global Hawk surveillance modulation to get a meliorate represent of the area.

Libya's overall expose defenses are supported on older state profession but Gortney called them confident and a potential threat to allied aircraft.

Also targeted: primeval warning radars and some subject facilities, Gortney said. The U.S. expeditionary has comprehensive past undergo in much combat missions; U.S. Air Force and Navy bomb repeatedly attacked Iraq's expose defenses during the 1990s patch enforcing a no-fly regularize over Iraq's Kurdish north.

Cruise missiles are the weapon of prototypal pick in much campaigns; they do not put pilots at risk, and they ingest navigational technologies that provide good precision.

The prototypal Tomahawk voyage missiles struck at 3 p.m. EDT, Gortney said, after a one-hour grace from the U.S. and nation vessels on send in the Mediterranean.

They were fired from fivesome U.S. ships — the guided-missile destroyers USS Stout and USS Barry, and threesome submarines, USS Providence, USS Scranton and USS Florida.

The U.S. has at least 11 naval vessels in the Mediterranean, including threesome submarines, digit destroyers, digit amphibious struggle ships and the USS Mount Whitney, a command-and-control vessel that is the flagship of the Navy's 6th Fleet. Also in the area are Navy P-3 and EP-3 surveillance aircraft, officials said.

Gates was skeptical of effort participating in Libya's subject war, informing Congress primeval this month that attractive discover Libya's expose defenses was equal to war. Others have worried that the assignment could put the U.S. on a nonstick slope to deeper involvement in still another Islamic land — on crowning of the wars in Irak and Afghanistan.

Hours after Secretary of State mountaineer Rodham politico attended an planetary conference in town that endorsed expeditionary state against Gadhafi, the U.S. and Britain kicked soured their attacks. politico said Gadhafi had mitt the world no pick but to interact urgently and forcefully to protect further expiration of noncombatant life.

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Associated Press illustrator parliamentarian Burns contributed to this report.

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