Lebanon raps UN bid

BY MOHAMAD BAZZI | Newsday Middle East Correspondent

August 7, 2006

BEIRUT, Lebanon - Lebanese leaders condemned a draft United Nations resolution yesterday that aims to end fighting between Hezbollah and Israel, raising doubts about whether a cease-fire would hold.

The strongest criticism came from Nabih Berri, the speaker of Lebanon's parliament who is close to Hezbollah. He said the measure agreed upon by the United States and France on Saturday is doomed to fail because it does not require Israeli troops to withdraw from south Lebanon as part of the cease-fire.

Thousands of Israeli troops and hundreds of tanks have invaded Lebanon in an effort to prevent Hezbollah from firing rockets into northern Israel. If Israeli troops remain in Lebanon, Berri said, Hezbollah guerrillas will continue to fight them and any cease-fire would collapse.

"If Israel has not won the war but still gets all this, what would have happened had they won?" Berri asked at a news conference. "All of Lebanon rejects any talks and any UN resolution that does not meet Lebanese demands."

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the resolution, expected to win approval this week at the UN Security Council, is "the first step, not the only step." She hinted that even after a cease-fire, fighting could continue in south Lebanon.

"These things take awhile to wind down," she told reporters in Crawford, Texas, where the president is vacationing at his ranch. "I can't say that you should rule out that there could be skirmishes of some kind for some time to come."

The UN measure calls for disarming Hezbollah; creating a buffer zone from the border up to 18 miles inside Lebanon, where the Lebanese army and an international force would be deployed; resolving a land dispute between Israel and Lebanon over an area called Shebaa Farms; and imposing an arms embargo that would allow only the Lebanese government to bring weapons into the country. That ban is meant to cut off the supply of missiles to Hezbollah from Iran and Syria.

The resolution also calls for the current UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, to monitor the cease-fire. After Israel and Lebanon agree on other steps, the Security Council would then adopt another resolution to create a larger and better-armed force for south Lebanon.

Lebanese leaders, including Prime Minister Fuad Saniora, say the resolution does not address their main demands. Those include an Israeli withdrawal from Shebaa Farms; an exchange of Lebanese prisoners in Israeli custody for two Israeli soldiers abducted by Hezbollah on July 12; and reparations for the current war.

The UN measure calls for the "unconditional release" of the two soldiers. It does not demand that Israel end the naval and air blockade it imposed on Lebanon at the start of 26 days of fighting.

Rice said no resolution could please both sides. "There are things the Israelis wanted and things the Lebanese wanted," she said, "and everybody wasn't going to get everything that they wanted."

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