This was an initial proposal, with the same colors in a slightly boring horizontal triband:
Another proposal rearranged it a bit, but was discarded as too similar to the flag of Tanganyika, which seems quite reasonable, since they did not know that problem would be short-lived:
In the end they went for the saltire, which seems like a great choice, creating a more unique and interesting design.
Yea, my first reflex was “What about Libya?”, not realizing the flag changed in 2011 already.