Obama hits out at Cameron, Sarkozy over Libya intervention

In a rare public rebuke of two of Washington’s closest allies, President Barack Obama has hit out at British Prime Minister David Cameron and former French leader Nicolas Sarkozy over their roles in Libya after the fall of the Qaddafi regime.

Cameron became “distracted” and Sarkozy wanted to promote his country during the 2011 NATO-led military intervention in Libya, Obama said in an interview with The Atlantic magazine published on Thursday.

British daily The Independent on Friday slammed Obama’s comments as “an unprecedented attack on a British leader by a serving US president,” while The Times called the criticism “extraordinary.”

In the extensive interview, Obama discussed the conditions surrounding the British and French-led bombing campaign that led to the fall of Muammar Qaddafi’s regime.

Obama said when he considered what went wrong in Libya, “there’s room for criticism because I had more faith in the Europeans, given Libya’s proximity, being invested in the follow-up.”

Cameron stopped paying attention soon after the military operation, he said, becoming “distracted by a range of other things.”

Despite the criticism, a US National Security Council spokesperson insisted that Cameron remained a “close partner” of Obama’s.