DNI' Clapper: "..from a standpoint of attrition … over ... the longer term [Qaddafi] will prevail.."

"...The Obama administration defended its top intelligence official after he startled senators at a hearing Thursday by asserting that he thought Libya's Muammer Gadhafi would prevail in his battle against opposition forces. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper also said that he believes China and Russia pose the greatest state threats to the United States.
"I think the [Libyan] regime has more logistical resources in terms of the equipment they have," Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing Thursday. "So I just think from a standpoint of attrition … that over ... the longer term that the regime will prevail," Clapper said, in answer to a question posed by Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman.

The White House stressed that Clapper's assessment was not inconsistent with its call that Gadhafi must go, saying the former Defense Intelligence Agency chief was offering a purely "one dimensional," military "order of battle" analysis  of Libyan force capabilities, as National Security Advisor Tom Donilon put it on a call with journalists Thursday.
"If you did a static, one-dimensional assessment look at the order of battle, you can come to various conclusions" Donilon said. "My view is ... that things in the Middle East and in Libya need to be looked at not through a static but dynamic lens, not through a one-dimensional but multi-dimensional lens. If you look at it that way, you get a different picture."
"The President has made it crystal-clear that Qaddafi has lost legitimacy to lead, he's lost the confidence of his people and should leave," Donilon said.
Clapper also raised eyebrows in the same hearing when, in answer to a question about which nation-states pose the greatest threat to the United States, he answered China and Russia. Clapper quickly added, however, that he believes terrorism, rather than any particular nation state, poses the greatest threat to the United States..."