His job is done.
Exactly seven months ago, Lieutenant General Charles Bouchard took command of NATO’s
Operation Unified Protector.
From the Allied Joint Force Command in Naples, the Canadian general directed the complex
air and sea campaign for the people of Libya.
“What made this a success was a sound campaign plan, a good campaign plan, a good design
from the start and we made sure that we stayed the course throughout.
Even though there were some pressures, be it political, internal to Libya and others.
But we were able to stay focused on our objectives and meet those objectives.”
The objectives were set by the United Nations: enforcing an arms embargo and a no-fly zone,
and protecting civilians against the threat of attack.
NATO allies answered the call.
They came together faster than ever before.
Joined by partners from Europe and the Arab world.
And they conducted the mission from the air and at sea, with no boots on the ground.
Qadhafi had assembled his war machine over 40 years.
Within seven months, it was no longer able to attack or harm the Libyan people.
But Qadhafi himself was never a target for NATO.
“Let me make myself perfectly clear, Gaddafi was never a single target.
Throughout our operation we remained focused on troops engaging civilians, both directly
and indirectly…
lines of communications, ammunitions depots and maintenance depots and large concentrations
of troops preparing to attack civilians.”
NATO jets flew 9,600 strike sorties.
General Bouchard had the last word in what he says was a rigorous targeting process.
When deciding whether to go ahead with a strike, his main concern was to avoid civilian casualties.
“For us if it was to cause civilian casualties we would rather wait and come back at another
time.
One of the best examples we had was two air defence systems were located but at the same
location there was a soccer game taking place and we waited for two hours for the soccer
games to go for these young children to leave the area and once the area was cleared we
were able to successfully engage those targets.”
During the campaign, the regime made repeated allegations of NATO bombs having killed civilians.
General Bouchard says these were the most difficult moments for him: he says the allegations
were false.
“These were lies; we have clear knowledge that the regime actually moved corpses into
areas that were struck.
But every time that an allegation of civilian casualties was made it was always of concern
to me and I always ensured that they were fully assessed // and at the end of the day
none of these claims proved to be true.”
But the NATO campaign was not just fought in the air.
General Bouchard is keen to stress that the operations at sea were equally important to
the mission’s success.
Around 20 maritime vessels patrolled the approaches to Libya's coast to prevent weapons and mercenaries
from reaching Libya.
And the maritime component also played an important role by demining the entrance to
the port of Misurata.
“After the mining of the port of Misurata we saw some great courage of our maritime
crews to go out and clear the fields to ensure that humanitarian assistance cargos were allowed
in to Libya.”
Lt General Bouchard says he had no idea Gaddafi was in the convoy he targeted leaving Sirte.
He was surprised the Libyan leader had even stayed there for so long.
“At the end of the day my preference would have been to see Gaddafi brought to justice.
To justice by Libya and to justice by the international court.
But you know his passing has brought closure to the people of Libya and we should focus
and they should focus on their future not their past.”
I’m Mike Muehlberger reporting for the NATO channel from Naples, Italy.