President Obama hosted Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg of Norway in the Oval Office this afternoon, thanking him for his country's help in the NATO mission in Libya and offering his condolences for the large scale attack that took place in his country earlier this year. In regards to Norway's role in NATO's operations, Obama said that the relatively small Scandinavian country "punches above its weight" when it comes to air support and military assistance. The president also answered one question on whether Gadhafi's death vindicated his approach to the situation in Libya, here's his answer in full:

"There's no doubt that we did exactly what we said we were going to do in Libya, and I think it underscores the capacity of us to work together as an international community. The United States obviously has unique capacities and we are proud of the leadership we showed in that process, but increasingly wherever we have the possibility of working with outstanding partners like Norway then I think that we're going to be even more effective.

“And the United States will always preserve its right and duty to protect ourselves, our allies and our interests, but I think what this shows is that on a whole range of international issues there is an enormous capacity and we are able to leverage greater resources, more effectiveness at lower cost when we're able to work together. And so I'm very proud of the work that did on this operation.

“Most importantly I'm proud of what the Libyan people have achieved and I think they've got enourmous opportunity ahead of them. They've got a lot of challenges as well, but we have no given them the opportunity to determine their own destiny and that's something that we've seen across North Africa and the Arab world that there's nothing unique in aspiring to freedom and human rights and democracy. This is something that all people want to enjoy and I'm very pleased that the Libyan people are going to have the opportunity to do so."