tonight on "nightline," countdown to war. president obama warns libya's colonel gadhafi that he'll face american military might if he doesn't stop killing civilians. >> a cease-fire must be implemented immediately. >> and the clock is ticking. will america end up in yet another armed conflict? atomic end game? we'll have the latest as concern builds over especially dangerous fuel inside one of those japanese nuclear reactors. as more workers are sent in, can they stop the most radioactive meltdown of all? and, disaster pricing. the tsunami wipes out factories and creates shortages of the most popular consumer gadgets,

from flat screens to cell phones. get ready for sticker shock. >> announcer: from the global resources of abc news, with terry moran, cynthia mcfadden and bill weir in new york city this is "nightline," march 18th, 2011. >> good evening, i'm terry moran. and, american blood and treasure is on the line anew tonight as president obama prepares to take military action against libya, with u.n. backing, and in cooperation with france, britain and others. despite this pressure, libyan leader moammar gadhafi continued his bloody assault on the opposition, using tanks and heavy artillery to bombard towns. so, what price is the u.s. prepared to pay in libya? once again, afternoon a decade of war, a president is sending american troops into harm's way.

>> there is no decision i face as your commander in chief that i consider as carefully as the decision to ask our men and women to use military force. >> reporter: but barack obama has now opened another front in america's wars, libya. >> cease-fire must be implemented immediately. that means all attacks against civilians must stop. >> reporter: for nearly a month now, ordinary libyans have risen up to rid their land of the 42-year dictatorship of gadhafi. and after some initial soaring successes, gadhafi's better equipped, professional forces have slowly strangled the rebellion, using air power especially to rain terror down on his own people. so, the u.n. acted. >> translator: the resolution is

adopted. >> reporter: imposing a no-fly zone, and president obama committed the united states to the fight. >> let me be clear. these terms are not negotiable. these terms are not subject to negotiation. >> reporter: but the president's bold declaration today raises more questions than it answers. like, what is the goal here? the u.n. security council resolution authorizing the no-fly zone over libya is clear. this is a humanitarian intervention, aimed at stopping gadhafi from killing civilians. and that's what president obama said today. >> now here's why this matters to us. left unchecked, we have every reason to believe that gadhafi would commit atrocities against his people. many thousands could die. >> reporter: but there's another goal the president has announced previously, regime change, getting rid of gadhafi. >> colonel gadhafi needs to step down from power and leave. >> reporter: what's the goal of

this operation? is it regime change? get rid of gadhafi, or is it humanitarian, protect those rebels? >> the answer is both. there's a humanitarian goal but from the outset of this crisis, the administration has escalated its rhetoric and has said, gadhafi has to go. >> reporter: richard haas is a veteran american diplomat, a guy who has been in the room when these kinds of decisions are made, and he's now president of the council of foreign relations. he's skeptical of this policy. >> if we're telling him, at the end of the day, we're not going to live with you, why should he show restraint? i do not understand the connection between our rhetoric and what our policy is. >> reporter: another question. what happens next? no-fly zone sounds simple, but in reality, they're big, comp complicated and risky. >> the front line would be the fighters that would take care of any libyan aircraft that would be out there. to keep those fighters in the air, you need aerial refueling

tankers provide gas so they can stay air born longer. behind them, you need things like jammers that will jam the surface to air missile sites, that would jam libyan communications. >> reporter: and war is always and everywhere unpredictable. retired general wesley clark commanded nato during the wars in the balkans in the 1990s. >> the u.n. security council resolution says no occupation by foreign military troops. but that doesn't mean you couldn't put, let's say, air and naval gun fire liaison coordinating teams on the ground and use those folks to support the rebels, if it comes to fighting. or taking out gadhafi's forces. >> the united states essentially lit a fuse that's easier to light than it is to extinguish. because the limited steps that we are doing are unlikely to be the end of it. if they fail, the united states and the world are going to be on

the hook to do a lot more. >> reporter: and finally, what is the end game? it might be clear who we're fighting against, moammar gadhafi, a long-time weirdo and thug in the region, a boogie man in the middle east for decades, but who are we fighting for? >> one of the lessons of the last few years of iraq and afghanistan ought to be we need to be doubly careful of getting involved in these military situations when we are not fully knowledgeable of the situation. sure, we know we don't like gadhafi. are we so sure we like the alternative? are we really sure we want to help out libya that may not be in control of all of its territories so groups like al qaeda can put down roots? are we really sure we want to get involved in a military intervention that we don't know what happens next? >> reporter: but president obama and the u.n. have made a calculation. better the devil we don't know than the one we do know. >> somewhere, a week or two ago,

the tipping point was past, and it was clear that gadhafi wouldn't listen to reason, that this wasn't going to end peacefully and there wasn't any way, in the aftermath, that anyone in the world can feel safe and comfortable with the gadhafi regime. >> tonight, some news. white house counterterrorism adviser john brennan told reporters that the u.s. is preparing for a possible gadhafi directed terrorist attack, quote, gadhafi has the penchant to do things of a very concerning nature, brennan said. we have to anticipate and be prepared. up next, we're going to turn to japan. radiation from japan detected today in california. we've got the latest on japan's today in california. we've got the latest on japan's nuclear emergency. sssssss to skate o ce. what was i thinking? but i was still skating on thin ice with my cholesterol.

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>> announcer: "nightline" continues from new york city with terry moran. we turn now to japan and the fight to stabilize a nuclear plant there. but first, shocking new video emerges today of a car nearly succumbing to the tsunami. the driver races along a dike as the waves begin to flow over and then, watch this, it engulfed the vehicle. incredibly this was a survival story. but dire news tonight from the crippled fukushima daiichi nuclear plant, which now has sent radiation all the way to california. trace levels of radiation from the plant have been detected in sacramento, berkeley, and elsewhere. scientists however say the radiation did not pose health risks. here's david wright. >> reporter: today the managing director of the tokyo electric power company wept as he left a news conference. after acknowledging for the first time publicly that the

radiation being released at the fukushima power plant is indeed powerful enough to kill people. the temperature has gone up slightly since yesterday in reactor number four. part of the concrete casing meant to seal in the radiation has been stripped away, leaving a relatively thin bucket of steel as the only thing containing the fuel rods. japanese officials are especially concerned about reactor number three. because the fuel there contains plutonium. plutonium is the most combustible, lethal radioactive fuel of all. it hangs around almost forever. plutonium emitted at fukushima today will still be around nearly 500,000 years from now. the one bit of good news, external power lines have been attached to reactor number two. not yet to the others. the power is vital for operating special water pumps shipped in from the united states to cool the power plant down. workers at fukushima gave the first description of what it was like inside the power plant when

the earthquake struck. 63-year-old minora yushitu said the building shook sideways and the lights went out. and now the urgency of the reactor meltdown is eclipsing everything else. collecting t i complicating the relief effort. this is cell phone video from a hospital less than 30 miles from the reactor. 140 critically ill patients, most of them elderly, have been all but abandoned. the medicine has run out and most of the hospital staff has fled. reporters from the japanese television network nhk visited 16 hospitals and nursing homes inside the exclusion zone. now essentially cut off from help. the patients waiting to die. >> i cannot save them. we cannot save them because we don't have enough. >> reporter: but there is heroism too in the midst of this disaster. these are the firemen who bravely answered their country's c call to respond to the reactor.

putting their lives on the line to douse the toxic cauldron with water, knowing that by doing so they risk lethal doses of radiation. >> they are heroes. yeah. >> they're heroes? >> they are heroes. definitely. >> reporter: even after they manage to contain this initial crisis, that work is liable to go on for decades. five years ago we visited chernobyl for "nightline." 20 years after the explosion and meltdown there. they call this place the graveyard. it's a radioactive junkyard. the resting place for all the fire equipment used to douse the flames in reactor number four. it took 3,400 incredibly brave men 10 days to do it. in the end, all of this equipment had to be scrapped. and because of the toxic plume of smoke that spread across the region, new cases of cancer and birth defects are still springing up 20 years later. even in neighboring countries. but the children of chernobyl, now in their 20s, life often

feels like borrowed time. nikolai luchinski's father was a medical officer at chernobyl. he brought us back to his old apartment. >> home sweet home. >> reporter: he was 6 years old when he lived here. on the walls he shows us the stickers he put up days before he left. on the windowsill, syringes still full of medicine used to counteract the radiation. even so, he says, entire families he knew have died. pripiet is a ghost town. a spooky quiet haunts the streets. trees grow on the rooftops. the humans are long gone. today as they finalize repairs on the concrete sarcophagus that encases the dead reactor at chernobyl, the workers can stay only for 15-minute shifts. the half-life of nuclear fallout is measured in decades, even centuries. in japan many of the americans

in the hardest-hit areas are finally getting out. the first evacuation flights organized by the u.s. embassy carried them out of japan. but so many others here are trapped. >> yesterday, my little one wanted to play outside in the playground. but i didn't let her go out. i'm getting to know how dangerous the situation is. >> this is the emergency bag. i don't really know what's happening. but what i know is it's kind of scary in other places. the north places. but it's not really scary in tokyo so i'm not thinking about it. >> reporter: her childhood poisoned by the same fear of radiation that must have haunted her grandparents after world war ii. all they can do is watch and hope that somehow, they manage to get this deadly genie back in the bottle. i'm david wright for "nightline" in osaka, japan.

>> our thanks to david wright for that report on japan and a look back at chernobyl there. up next, we'll lighten up just a little bit. consumer goods. gadgets that americans love. are their prices about to skyrocket? we look at which factories were destroyed in the tsunami. we all have a bloodline. but it takes a bold spirit to say, "it's my turn"... then go out and prove it. the new 2011 jeep compass. genetically engineered with jeep 4x4 capability, iconic beauty, and a red-blooded attitude all its own. the 2011 jeep compass. the evolution of a legendary bloodline. well-qualified lessees can get a 2011 jeep compass sport 4x2 for $239 a month. [ female announcer ] if you get caught by surprise, always leakguard protection adjusts to sudden changes in flow.

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well, the image of japan is a place of industrial efficiency, has been replaced these days by images of destruction. but many of the components for some of america's favorite electronic gadgets, for example, used to be, past tense there, produced exclusively in japan. now those factories are destroyed. and the market is in turmoil. here's jeremy hubbard. >> reporter: they're the minuscule chips that make up edge from your cell phones to our computers to our blu-rays. those batteries that power your ipad two. the sd cards that hold your digital photos. these are the consumer casualties of the japan quake, with an impact on supply and demand that could be seismic. we took a walk around the electronics store with john abel from "wired" magazine. he says because the companies that make those tiny parts have all cut back or closed japanese

plants entirely because of the quake and the nuclear scare, there will likely be shortages of the gadgets we love. in fact, we're already seeing the effects. an eight gig memory card costs $10 after $7 the day before the quake. the low prices for flat screen tvs are likely to start spiking. >> there's probably enough for about a month or so. but you're seeing prices of these components skyrocket. price of a tv could go up. you might not be able to get the brand that you want for the model that you want. >> reporter: 90% of a key component in lcds comes from japan. and you've probably never heard of the nand flash memory chip, but they pack the computing punch in everything from mobile devices to tablets. their price rose 20% on monday. and have continued to climb. it's not hard to imagine cell phone prices jumping as a result. same for computer and tv lcd b monitors. and some are predicting

shortages of the ipad two. at least five components of the wildly popular new tablet are made in japan. the storage and memory, even the touch screen glass. no word from apple on how it could affect supplies here in the u.s., but already, the company is indefinitely delaying the launch of the tablet in japan. >> if we get to the point where the factories don't reopen, that will be disastrous. because there aren't many places that do these things. so, scrambling around in real time to find alternative suppliers are going to be hard for some. >> reporter: sure, they are min circle parts in our dajtgadgetst times like this show how big a role they play in our high tech lives. i'm jeremy hubbard for "nightline" in new york. >> the ripple effects from the quake. thanks to jeremy hubbard for that. thank you for watching abc news. tomorrow morning on "good morning america," all the latest on u.s. preparations for libya. we