"I am not in the Foreign Office, fortunately, so I am not too worried by my remarks. But I am still not totally convinced anyone knows where we are going now.?
His frank comments come in the wake of those of David Cameron, the Prime Minister, who earlier this week told the Commons that a ?bloody massacre? was narrowly avoided by the military action in Libya.
He said: "In this country we know what Gaddafi is capable of. We simply cannot have a situation where a failed pariah state festers on Europe's border.?
They also follow those of a defence minister. When asked how long Britain would be involved in the military operation, Nick Harvey, the Armed Forces minister replied: ?How long is a piece of string? We don?t know how long this is going to go on for.?
In his interview with The Guardian, Mr Clarke insisted that the public would continue to support intervention as long as ?innocent people? were being protected.
Ministers have previously publicly warned of a stalemate in Libya. A poll published by the newspaper also found a majority of the public oppose British involvement in the military action in Libya.
But Mr Clarke insisted: "The British people will support us for as long as it takes, so long they think we are protecting innocent civilians, many of whom seem to share our values against an evil dictator.
?We would have seen a lot of innocent people, some of them inspired by the best motives, being killed and a quite lunatic regime back in power, acting as an inspiration to others who want to imitate him. So we have already achieved something.?
He added that it ?would be mad to occupy another country while we are in Afghanistan?. He said the UN resolution on Libya "represented a significant event in the evolution of the world order".
On Thursday, Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary General told the Security Council that Libyan troops were disregarding the ceasefire order.
Sam Brownback Laura Bush George W. Bush George H. W. Bush Jimmy Carter
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