– WAG the Dog

Russia, U.S. Disagree Over UN Cease-Fire Resolution for Lebanon
Bloomberg

Russia will ask the United Nations Security Council to demand a 72-hour cease-fire in Lebanon, hampering efforts to produce an agreement on a U.S.-French resolution aimed at ending fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.

Vitaly Churkin, Russia's UN ambassador, said late yesterday there is no ``immediate prospect'' the U.S.-French resolution will be accepted. U.S. envoy John Bolton said discussions on the draft will continue today in New York.

``We have a realistic prospect of success,'' Bolton said. ``I have not at all given up on the hope that we might vote'' as early as today. The Russian proposal is ``unhelpful'' because it diverts attention from the U.S.-French effort, he said.

Israeli forces have advanced about 6 kilometers (3.7 miles) inside southern Lebanon since the conflict began July 12 when Hezbollah fighters staged a cross-border attack and captured two Israeli soldiers. Israel wants the soldiers' return and an end to the presence in southern Lebanon of Hezbollah, which is designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. and Israel.

The U.S.-French draft would leave Israeli forces in place in southern Lebanon until the Lebanese, assisted by an international force, take control of the area. Arab leaders want the UN to demand an immediate withdrawal of Israeli soldiers.

``We have not reached agreement, but we will continue to work on it,'' Bolton said after envoys of the U.S., Russia, China, France and the U.K., the five permanent members of the Security Council, met in New York. He refused to detail the remaining differences, saying only that they will have to be resolved by foreign ministers or heads of state.

Rice Visits UN

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will travel to New York today, the State Department said yesterday. U.K. Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said she will go to the UN today to help forge an agreement.

Churkin said he will introduce a resolution calling for an immediate cessation of hostilities to allow humanitarian aid to be delivered.

Yesterday's talks foundered over Lebanese objections to language in the draft that would give UN-backed international peacekeeping troops the authority to use force to disarm or expel Hezbollah, according to Ben Chang, deputy spokesman for the U.S. mission at the UN.

Military Operations

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's Security Cabinet two days ago approved expanding military operations to the Litani River, which stretches across southern Lebanon as far as 30 kilometers (19 miles) from the border with Israel.

The Israeli government ``is hoping for a breakthrough at the UN that will save them from having to expand this war because it is going to be very costly,'' said Danny Rothschild, president of the Council for Peace and Security, an association of Israeli national security experts.

The last draft resolution, given to Security Council envoys at the weekend, calls for a ``full cessation of hostilities'' and seeks to bar further Israeli ``offensive'' operations until a second resolution leads to the deployment of a multinational force in Lebanon.

The Lebanese government has objected to the reference to ``offensive'' operations out of concern that Israel considers its military actions to be defensive and wouldn't be restrained by that provision of the resolution.

Hezbollah yesterday fired rockets at a suburb of Haifa, Israel's third-largest city, police said. In central Beirut, Israeli planes fired rockets at a disused lighthouse and dropped leaflets telling people to evacuate the city's southern suburbs.

Death Toll

Some 834 Lebanese, 30 of them soldiers, and 124 Israelis, including 84 from the military, have died in the violence, according to police and military officials in both countries. Israel's military said it has killed at least 470 Hezbollah fighters. Hezbollah spokesman Hussain Nabulsi said 53 of its members have died.

More than 3,400 rockets have hit Israel since the conflict began, causing 1 million Israelis to flee the northern part of the country or to remain in underground shelters. Israel's raids on Lebanon have displaced more than 1 million Lebanese.

The UN World Food Program said yesterday food, fresh water and fuel stocks are running ``dangerously low'' in Lebanon and urged a cessation of hostilities to allow the delivery of humanitarian aid. The UN said no relief convoys have gone south of the Litani River in the past four days.

Hezbollah, sponsored by Syria and Iran, has been linked to scores of attacks, including rocket assaults on Israeli towns, bombings in 1983 that killed 241 U.S. servicemen and 58 French soldiers at their Beirut bases, and the 1994 attack that killed 85 people at a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires.

The group has 14 seats in Lebanon's 128-member Parliament and two members in the Cabinet. While participating in politics, Hezbollah has defied UN resolution 1559, which calls for the disarming and disbanding of militias in Lebanon.

Israel's offensive is its first full-scale military attack on Lebanon since the army pulled out of southern Lebanon in 2000, after controlling or occupying the area for 22 years.

To contact the reporters on this story:
Bill Varner at the United Nations at
wvarner@bloomberg.net;
Jonathan Ferziger in Tel Aviv at jferziger@bloomberg.net