US top official on sudden trip to Lebanon
Lebanon-Israel-USA, Politics, 7/24/2006

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made today a surprise visit to Beirut, Lebanon, to express US support for the government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and to discuss the humanitarian needs of the Lebanese people as hostilities continue between the Israeli Defense Forces and Hizbullah militants in the south of Lebanon.

Rice told reporters en route to the region that a major goal of her trip is to "help establish some efforts on the humanitarian side."

The secretary said most of her recent conversations with Israeli officials have been focused on the humanitarian situation and ways of getting assistance to populations displaced by the conflict.

The United States is "trying to establish corridors in and out of Lebanon, as well as corridors within Lebanon that might make it possible to get humanitarian assistance to the Lebanese people," she said.

During her trip to the region, the secretary also will meet with regional leaders and representatives from other interested countries at a gathering of the Lebanon Core Group in Rome to seek a lasting, stable cessation of hostilities.

"We believe that a cease-fire is urgent," she said. "It is, however, important to have conditions that will make it also sustainable."

The secretary pointed to the 1989 Taif Accords, which brought an end to Lebanon's 15-year civil war, and UN Security Council Resolution 1559 as appropriate bases for ending hostilities. Both the Saudi-sponsored Taif Accords and Resolution 1559 call for the disbanding of all militias in Lebanon and the extension of Lebanese government control over the entire territory of Lebanon.

Rice said the framework for a resolution to the crisis clearly would provide for "the Lebanese government's ability to exercise sovereignty over all of its territory, not to have extremist groups, unauthorized armed groups that are able to use the territory of Lebanon to launch illegal activities and then plunge Lebanon and the region into war."

She said, "If we end the fighting only to have it restart in three weeks or three months,... then all of the carnage that Hizbullah launched by its illegal activities, abducting the soldiers and then launching rocket attacks, we will have gotten nothing from that, we will have learned nothing from it."

The United States has called on neighboring Syria to withdraw its support for Hizbullah, but Rice said she would not be meeting with Syrian officials during her trip to the region because past meetings between American and Syrian officials had proven entirely unproductive. "The problem isn't that we haven't talked to the Syrians; it's that the Syrians haven't acted," she said.

She said Syria knows what its obligations are under the Taif Accords and Resolution 1559, and she hopes that the broad international condemnation of Hizbullah's actions will make Syria think twice about supporting such activities.

While the US Secretary says she went as saign of US support to Lebnon's prime minister, the New York Times reported two days ago that "The Bush administration is rushing a delivery of precision-guided bombs to Israel, which requested the expedited shipment last week after beginning its air campaign against Hizbullah targets in Lebanon, American officials said Friday." This comes after the US blocked a resolution at the UN Security Council to force Israel to stop its aggression, that so far, some have said, set the country back decades, forced dislocation of more than 500,000 Lebanese civilians, and destroyed much of the countries infrastructure and industry.

Following her visit to Beirut, the secretary travels to Israel to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Lebanon's president had told CNN that the Lebanese army will join Hizbullah to defend Lebanese lands if Israel entered into Lebanon. That was echoed by the Lebanon's parliament speaker who is also the leader of the Amal movement. Another Lebanese government official said that we will all stand together at this time, and any other discussions are inappropriate at this time under the aggressions being held on Lebanon.

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  German party: Israeli acts are barbarism in Lebanon and Gaza   (7/20/2006)
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  Merkel spokesman dismisses Jewish group's criticism   (7/18/2006)
  Solana: Israeli destruction in Lebanon is dramatic   (7/18/2006)
  UN official: we come to Lebanon to declare our solidarity   (7/17/2006)
  Mubarak: Israel will fail by its mistake   (7/17/2006)
  US blocking UNSC action on Israel over Lebanon aggression   (7/17/2006)
  Swedish minister: The Israeli attacks disproportionate   (7/17/2006)
  German Minister : bombing civilians and civilian installations completely unacceptable   (7/17/2006)
  Iranian official: those quite help Israel's aggression   (7/15/2006)
  Moussa: Peace is dead due to Israel's aggression   (7/15/2006)
  Norway condemns Israeli attacks on Lebanon   (7/14/2006)
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