Memo to DOD: State Practice in NATO Conduct of Libya Operations?

Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta delivered a speech Friday at a NATO air base in Italy in which he praised NATO operations in Libya, reports the Wall Street Journal; Panetta delivered his remarks standing in front of a US surveillance drone.  I myself am relatively agnostic on the Libyan conflict as such.  However, something I should very much like to see is a detailed report on the state practice evinced by NATO forces in the conduct of hostilities in Libya.  My concern is not that there have been war crimes or illegal conduct by NATO; I have not heard credible reports of this.  It is, rather, that some of what appeared to be routine targeting decisions by NATO forces in Libya — what to target, under what circumstances, at what risk of civilian harm, use of precision weaponry, etc. — might have been criticized if carried out by the US in Afghanistan.

It seems to me useful for NATO, or at least the US, to take the opportunity to set out exactly what NATO forces in Libya regarded as lawful in targeting, in risks of targeting, in decisions regarding proportionality, knowns and unknowns, for the various NATO forces with their varying precision capabilities.  It is not to make claims of illegality. On the contrary, it is to set out the markers of what NATO’s militaries regard as lawful targeting decisions, as demonstrated through state practice.  It seems to me that the US has a great interest in making a public record of the kinds of things that NATO thought lawful to target.

For that matter, too, it would be useful to make clear the extent to which NATO countries taking part in these hostilities from the air regard the actions by the rebels on the ground — for example, besieging, under aerial attack by NATO forces, the hold-out zones including their trapped civilians — that are made possible by NATO air support, as being the responsibility of NATO forces.  The rebels are NATO’s allied forces; the rebels have been charged by some observers with violations of the laws of war; if those allegations were true, to what extent does NATO regard itself as having responsibilities to control and sanction the acts of its allied ground forces?  And if not, should that not be regarded as state practice in regards to the practicalities of state responsibilities for allied forces’ actions?