Libya's teetering government is urging the United States to give the country a chance even as it sinks into chaos. The rebels who toppled Muammar Gadhafi three years ago hired the lobbying group of Patton Boggs and the Harbour Group public relations firm in 2011 to help convince the Barack Obama administration to recognize their interim transitional council as Libya's legitimate government. Today, many of the same lobbyists - the contract with Harbour ended last year - must persuade US officials that Libya is not a lost cause.
The lobby campaign has been a tough sell on Capitol Hill, which put up roadblocks to US foreign aid to Libya following the Sept. 11, 2012, attack against the US consulate in Benghazi in which Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans died. Congressional appropriators have written restrictions into annual spending bills prohibiting aid unless the State Department reports that the government is cooperating with the United States in its “efforts to investigate and bring to justice those responsible” for the attacks. Similar language has been inserted in the House’s State Department and foreign operations spending bill for FY2015, but not in the Senate version.
