ATHENS - Some 400 US Marines arrived at an American naval base in Greece in a buildup of US forces around Libya, and Britain and France said Thursday that preparations should begin to establish a "no-fly zone" over the North African nation to protect rebel forces. Libyan opposition leaders have pleaded for foreign powers to launch airstrikes to help them oust Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi from power, but the Pentagon has tried to play down the idea of using military force, including a no-fly zone. Nevertheless, the US is mobilising: Some 400 US Marines from the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Unit, based at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, arrived Wednesday at the US Souda Bay on the Greek island of Crete. Base spokesman Paul Farley said they have been deployed "as part of contingency planning to provide the president (Barack Obama) flexibility on full range of option regarding Libya," along with the amphibious assault ships USS Kearsarge and USS Ponce which have been ordered to the Mediterranean Sea. Russia has ruled out a no-fly zone, and its consent is required as a veto-wielding member of the UN Security Council. But British Foreign Minister William Hague has said that while "ideally" such a zone would need to be sanctioned by the UN that wasn't essential. No-fly zones operated over Saddam Hussein's Iraq by the US and Britain did not receive such Security Council approval, while the one over Bosnia did. Hague met Thursday in Paris with his French counterpart, Alain Juppe, and both said they had agreed that a no-fly zone needed to be considered. Juppe said France and Britain "agree to consider and even act" on planning for the zone, "if Gadhafi carries out his threat to use force against the civilian population in the days ahead." Hague said the countries agree on the need to "do everything we can to increase the pressure on Gadhafi's regime and help to bring an end to violence." "Of course it has to be legal, it would have widespread international support. It would be the international community saying we have the responsibility to protect people," Hague told the BBC. Italy has offered its bases to be used for any enforcement of a possible no-fly zone, but has insisted it must be UN-sanctioned. Foreign Minister Franco Frattini on Thursday "categorically" ruled out any actual Italian military intervention in the country, citing its past as Libya's colonial ruler. German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, meanwhile, said discussions of military intervention weren't even on the agenda, and that regardless Germany was opposed. "We do not participate, and we do not share the discussion of a military intervention because we think this would be very counterproductive," Westerwelle said in English in the Slovak capital, Bratislava, on Thursday. Rather, he called for additional sanctions against Gadhafi and his regime, saying those adopted by the EU didn't go far enough.
