WASHINGTON (Reuters) — President Barack Obama has signed a
secret order authorizing covert U.S. government support for rebel forces
seeking to oust Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, government officials told
Reuters on Wednesday.

A rebel guards the front line on the road between Ajdabiyah and Brega as forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi threatened to push them further away from strategic oil refineries in eastern Libya March 31, 2011. REUTERS/Finbarr O’Reilly

Obama signed the order, known as a presidential
“finding,” within the last two or three weeks, according to
government sources familiar with the matter.

Such findings are a principal form of presidential directive
used to authorize secret operations by the Central Intelligence Agency. This is
a necessary legal step before such action can take place but does not mean that
it will.

“As is common practice for this and all
administrations, I am not going to comment on intelligence matters,” White
House spokesman Jay Carney said in a statement. “I will reiterate what the
president said yesterday — no decision has been made about providing arms to
the opposition or to any group in Libya.”

The CIA, which declined comment on the Obama authorization,
has inserted small groups of clandestine operatives to gather intelligence for
air strikes as part of a shadow force of Westerners that the United States
hopes can help bleed Gadaffi’s military, The New York Times reported, citing
unnamed American officials.

In addition to the CIA operatives, dozens of British special
forces and MI6 intelligence officers are also working in Libya, the newspaper
said.

News that Obama had given the authorization surfaced as the
President and other U.S. and allied officials spoke openly about the
possibility of sending arms supplies to Gaddafi’s opponents, who are fighting
better-equipped government forces.

The United States is part of a coalition, with NATO members
and some Arab states, which is conducting air strikes on Libyan government
forces under a U.N. mandate aimed at protecting civilians opposing Gaddafi.

Interviewed by U.S. networks on Tuesday, Obama said the
objective was for Gaddafi to “ultimately step down” from power. He
spoke of applying “steady pressure, not only militarily but also through
these other means” to force Gaddafi out.

Obama said the U.S. had not ruled out providing military
hardware to rebels. “It’s fair to say that if we wanted to get weapons
into Libya, we probably could. We’re looking at all our options at this
point,” he told ABC News anchor Diane Sawyer.

In Washington, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton insisted
to reporters that no decision had yet been taken.

U.S. officials monitoring events in Libya say neither
Gaddafi’s forces nor the rebels, who have asked the West for heavy weapons, now
appear able to make decisive gains.

While U.S. and allied airstrikes have seriously damaged
Gaddafi’s military forces and disrupted his chain of command, officials say,
rebel forces remain disorganized and unable to take full advantage of Western
military support.

SPECIFIC OPERATIONS

People familiar with U.S. intelligence procedures said that
Presidential covert action “findings” are normally crafted to provide
broad authorization for a range of potential U.S. government actions to support
a particular covert objective.

In order for specific operations to be carried out under the
provisions of such a broad authorization — for example the delivery of cash or
weapons to anti-Gaddafi forces — the White House also would have to give
additional “permission” allowing such activities to proceed.

Former officials say these follow-up authorizations are
known in the intelligence world as “‘Mother may I’ findings.”

In 2009 Obama gave a similar authorization for the expansion
of covert U.S. counter-terrorism actions by the CIA in Yemen. The White House
does not normally confirm such orders have been issued.

Because U.S. and allied intelligence agencies still have
many questions about the identities and leadership of anti-Gaddafi forces, any
covert U.S. activities are likely to proceed cautiously until more information
about the rebels can be collected and analyzed, officials said.

“The whole issue on (providing rebels with) training
and equipment requires knowing who the rebels are,” said Bruce Riedel, a
former senior CIA Middle East expert who has advised the Obama White House.

Riedel said that helping the rebels to organize themselves
and training them in how use weapons effectively would be more urgent then
shipping them arms.

ARMS EMBARGO

Sending in weapons would arguably violate an arms embargo on
Libya by the U.N. Security Council imposed on February 26, although British,
U.S. and French officials have suggested there may be a loophole.

Getting a waiver would require the agreement of all 15
council members, which is unlikely at this stage. Diplomats say any countries
that decided to arm the rebels would be unlikely to seek formal council
approval.

An article in early March on the website of the Voice of
America, the U.S. government’s broadcasting service, speculated on possible
secret operations in Libya and defined a covert action as “any U.S.
government effort to change the economic, military, or political situation
overseas in a hidden way.”

The article, by VOA intelligence correspondent Gary Thomas,
said covert action “can encompass many things, including propaganda,
covert funding, electoral manipulation, arming and training insurgents, and
even encouraging a coup.”

U.S. officials also have said that Saudi Arabia and Qatar, whose
leaders despise Gaddafi, have indicated a willingness to supply Libyan rebels
with weapons.

Members of Congress have expressed anxiety about U.S.
government activities in Libya. Some have recalled that weapons provided by the
U.S. and Saudis to mujahideen fighting Soviet occupation forces in Afghanistan
in the 1980s later ended up in the hands of anti-American militants.

There are fears that the same thing could happen in Libya
unless the U.S. is sure who it is dealing with. The chairman of the House Intelligence
Committee, Rep. Mike Rogers, said on Wednesday he opposed supplying arms to the
Libyan rebels fighting Gaddafi “at this time.”

“We need to understand more about the opposition before
I would support passing out guns and advanced weapons to them,” Rogers
said in a statement.