Stalemate in Libya is giving way to building revolutionary  pressure against the regime of Muammar Gaddafi, according to new U.S.  intelligence reports.
While the battle is far from won, the officials point to three key  indicators: dwindling fuel supplies, a cash crisis and reports of low  morale among regime troops.
The assessment comes as French authorities describe overtures from  Libyan emissaries reportedly seeking sanctuary for Gaddafi, who has  survived sustained bombing by NATO war planes and U.S. armed drones  since mid-March.
While the revolutionary forces, known collectively as the National  Liberation Army (NLA)  face their own supply problems, they have  captured towns from Nalut to Kikla in Libya’s western Nafusa mountains  and cut a key crude oil pipeline that feeds one of the regime’s major  refineries in the town of al-Zawiya, said U.S. officials. They cited  U.S. intelligence estimates that fuel shortages could occur within as  little as a month.
Gaddafi is also facing a cash crisis after Turkey cut off his access,  on July 4, to hundreds of millions in Libyan funds held in a  Turkish-Libyan bank, the U.S. officials said. They spoke on condition of  anonymity to discuss matters of intelligence.
While Gaddafi could not access actual cash, he had been issuing  letters of credit to pay his debtors, including fuel importers, the U.S.  officials said.
France’s foreign minister reported that Gaddafi was prepared to leave  power, citing Libyan emissaries who have approached the French  government. It was not immediately clear how credible the offer was.  Gaddafi has refused to leave or give up power since U.S. and NATO forces  launched a bombing campaign in support of revolutionaries who rose up  against Gaddafi’s regime’s bloody crackdown against anti-government  protests.
Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said that while the contacts do not  constitute formal negotiations, “we receive emissaries who are saying:  ‘Gaddafi is prepared to leave. Let’s discuss it.’” He didn’t identify  the envoys.
The U.S. State Department said Washington, too, is getting visitors.
“We have a lot of folks claiming to be representatives of Gaddafi one  way or the other reaching out to lots of other folks in the West,”  State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said. “But the messages are  contradictory,” she said, adding that there has yet to be a clear-cut  message “that Gaddafi is prepared to understand that it’s time for him  to go.”
French officials and their allies have insisted that Gaddafi’s giving up power is key to ending the hostilities.
U.S. officials briefed on intelligence reports could not confirm that  Gaddafi was considering departing, but they cited rising pressure  against the regime.
The U.S. officials said morale among Gaddafi’s soldiers was poor,  according to troops who were captured or defected. Commanders aren’t  pleased with the quality of forces they have and are not making major  gains on the battlefield, the officials said.
The NLA , meanwhile, are so busy trying to hold territory and survive  that they have done little work governing the territory they hold, the  officials said.
In Tripoli, Gaddafi’s officials warned that the liberated eastern half  of the country could be cut off from water supplies without a truce to  allow for maintenance work on a power plant pumping water up from the  desert.
About 70 percent of the country relies on water drawn from  underground aquifers deep in the southern desert, and the plant powering  it in the east is falling apart, said the Libyan agricultural minister.
However, in the liberated  city of Benghazi, the manager of the Great  Man-made River project, Abdel Razek al-Zlitni, said there are no water  supply problems in eastern Libya.
“The No. 1 zone, which supplies the eastern side of Libya with water,  is fine and is working perfectly,” he said of the reservoir there.
Al-Zlitni said, however, that there is no communication with the  besieged area in western Libya so it is unclear if it is having water  problems.
 
 
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