Muammar el-Qaddafi shouted, the twisted veins at his temples throbbing. He stood amid the rubble of his headquarters building, a bulletproof vest strapped around his torso. A crowd of reporters who had been bused from their hotel surrounded him. Behind them, medical teams scurried to care for bombing victims who were being dug out from the rubble and loaded aboard helicopters that would take them to Al Fatah University Hospital. “They are the two Hitlers behind this act of state-sponsored terrorism!” Qaddafi ranted on, purposely using the phrase from the president’s speech. “But they paid for their crimes! Their bombers were destroyed!” He paused dramatically, then cupped a hand over his mouth and leaned to an aide. “Are the children ready?” he whispered calmly—in sharp contrast to his rhetoric. The aide nodded and, on cue, two gurneys appeared from within the collapsed walls of Qaddafi’s home. Each contained a heavily bandaged child. “The Americans are murderers! Child murderers!”
