By Henry Chu, Los Angeles Times

Reporting from London— With the U.S. handing off responsibility for military action in Libya, scores of diplomats and international officials gathered in London to start plotting the country’s future and declared their resolve to maintain pressure on Moammar Kadafi until he stops attacking his own people.

But there were no Libyans included in the blue-ribbon guest list Tuesday. Nor was there a consensus among NATO countries taking command of the military action on its ultimate goal, or whether it would be enough for Kadafi to flee to another country rather than face prosecution.

A few representatives of the rebels fighting Kadafi hovered on the fringes of the high-level talks. However, their absence from the meetings was a reflection of just how politically delicate the crisis in Libya remains, and how much its outcome could depend on outside factors.

The conference was an attempt to forge greater unity of purpose among officials, including U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, leaders of the United Nations and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, representatives of the Arab League and the African Union, and about three dozen foreign ministers.

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