* Kerry,
Republicans say sanctions should be considered
* McCain, Lieberman support
Libya no-fly zone
* U.S. military action unlikely -
analyst
* Violence pushes
oil to near 2-1/2-year high
* U.S. to evacuate citizens by ferry
(Adds U.S. statement on evacuation plans)
By
Ross Colvin and
Arshad Mohammed
WASHINGTON, Feb 22 (Reuters) - Pressure mounted on the
White House on Tuesday to intervene to stop
Muammar Gaddafi's
bloody crackdown on democracy protests as a lawmaker close to
President Barack Obama urged
oil firms to halt work in
Libya.
The
United States faced calls to impose sanctions but also
to take direct action such as bombing Libyan airfields and
imposing no-fly zones -- military steps that most analysts
consider unlikely. Some critics questioned Obama's silence on
the violence in which hundreds of Libyans have died. U.S. officials called for an end to the violence but seemed
to rule out any unilateral action, stressing the
United States
was working with other countries on a way forward.
Senator
John Kerry, the
influential chairman of the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee, urged the
White House to consider
reimposing tough sanctions on
Libya. "World leaders must together put
Colonel Gaddafi on notice
that his cowardly actions will have consequences," Kerry said. The
White House said it was studying Kerry's proposal to
reimpose sanctions that were lifted by the
Bush administration
but, for now, was focused on ending the bloodshed, which sent
U.S.
oil prices to near 2-1/2-year highs.
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Kerry's Republican counterpart in the
House of Representatives, said the
United States and others
"should impose economic sanctions, including freezing assets of
the regime and imposing a ban on travel." Obama did not mention
Libya when he spoke about small
business at a university in
Ohio -- in contrast to his German
counterpart
Angela Merkel, who said she would back sanctions if
Gaddafi did not halt the violence.
Obama's administration has been struggling to keep up with
the wave of popular uprisings unfolding across the
Middle East
and
North Africa. Each country has presented its own challenges
for Washington, which has seen its decades-old
Middle East
policy upended in a matter of weeks. Obama spoke out about violence against protesters in
Tunisia,
Egypt and
Bahrain but some analysts saw his silence on
Libya as a deliberate tactic. "Getting into a spitting match with Gaddafi would not be
such a smart idea," said
Daniel Serwer of Johns Hopkins
University's School of Advanced International Studies. "This
guy obviously enjoys the attention so ignoring him may have
some virtue."
LIMITED OPTIONS
U.S. options to influence events in
Libya are limited,
unlike in
Egypt and
Bahrain where Washington was able to bring
pressure to bear as a long-time ally and benefactor. U.S.
foreign aid to
Libya was less than $1 million in 2010. Military action does not appear to be on the table,
although the
United States has not shied from the use of force
against Gaddafi in the past. It bombed
Tripoli and
Libya's
second city, Benghazi, in 1986 in retaliation for an attack on
a West Berlin disco used by U.S. military personnel.
"There is absolutely no talk of military intervention,"
said
Daniel Byman of the
Brookings Institution in Washington.
"We don't know the opposition and it is not clear that they
would be on our side."
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton repeated her call to
stop the bloodshed. Asked whether Washington was prepared to go
beyond condemnation, Clinton said officials were working with
the international community to decide on "appropriate" action.
Clinton hinted that the cautious response so far might be
linked to concerns about the safety of U.S. citizens in
Libya. The
State Department said it had chartered a ferry that
would depart central
Tripoli on Wednesday. It said U.S.
citizens would be processed on a first-come, first-served basis
with priority given to people with medical emergencies.
Earlier on Tuesday the department said it had been unable
to move any of its diplomats and embassy family members out of
Libya. The ferry plan appeared to be an acceleration of U.S.
efforts to evacuate as plans had originally been to put
Americans on scheduled flights. Anti-Gaddafi protesters gathered outside the
White House
chanting "
White House where are you?
Libya now needs you."
Senators
John McCain and
Joseph Lieberman backed the idea
of a no-fly zone as one of the measures that could be taken by
the
United States, the
European Union and the
African Union.
U.S. COMPANIES IN
LIBYA
Kerry said, beyond possible U.S. sanctions, that
energy
companies should take action as well.
"All American and international
oil companies should
immediately cease operations in
Libya until violence against
civilians ceases," he said in a statement.
Italy's Eni said it halted output in
Libya, which is
Italy's biggest
oil supplier. A number of companies including
BP, Royal Dutch Shell and Suncor
Energy Inc said they were
pulling out staff but had not confirmed any impact on
production.
Among U.S. companies,
Marathon Oil and Occidental Petroleum
said production in
Libya continued.
After an estrangement of decades, largely because of
Libya's support for militants, the
United States gradually
began to improve ties following Gaddafi's decision in late 2003
to give up
Libya's weapons of mass destruction programs.
U.S. economic sanctions were progressively removed after
Libya agreed to accept civil responsibility for the bombing of
Pan Am Flight 103 over
Scotland in 1988.
(Additional reporting by
David Morgan,
Susan Cornwell, Andrew
Quinn,
Doug Palmer,
Paul Eckert and
Deborah Charles in
Washington and
Braden Reddall in
San Francisco; Editing by John
O'Callaghan and
Christopher Wilson)
