BARACK Obama believes a “distracted” David Cameron was partly responsible for Libya becoming a “mess” after the removal of Gadaffi.
In a candid interview with Atlantic magazine, Obama said Libya becoming a Daesh stronghold was because the US, France and the UK did not do more.
“When I go back and I ask myself what went wrong,” Obama said, “there’s room for criticism, because I had more faith in the Europeans, given Libya’s proximity, being invested in the follow-up. Obama then says Cameron soon stopped paying attention, becoming “distracted by a range of other things”.
Pointing to how the UK Government spent money on military intervention and rebuilding in Libya, Alex Salmond said Cameron stood “condemned not just by the White House but by these dramatic statistics”.
Documents released from Westminster show that £320 million was spent on intervention and £25m on “stabilisation assistance” .
The figures, Salmond, said: “Show how keen [Cameron] was to bomb and how loath he was to rebuild. As a direct result we have yet another nightmare failed state has emerged in the Middle East. Under ‘bomber Cameron’ military action is not part of an international strategy but a substitute for strategy and we are all paying the price of his negligence.”
Downing Street acknowledged that there were “still many difficult challenges in Libya” but said intervening and “coming to the aid of innocent civilians who were being tortured and killed by their leader was the right thing to do”.
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