US pushes for quick approval of ceasefire resolution

The Bush administration is pushing for quick approval of a ceasefire resolution from the UN Security Council, but is warning the action is unlikely to put an immediate stop to the fighting in the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict.

US officials say they expect the council to vote by tomorrow on the resolution designed to stop the major military operations that have been disrupting life in Lebanon and Israel for more than three weeks.

The fighting between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon intensified over the weekend as diplomatic work was under way at the United Nations.

Security Council experts went over the draft for several hours yesterday, and diplomats said there was a widespread feeling that it did not sufficiently take Lebanon’s concerns into account. Several members suggested amendments.

President George Bush, on a 10-day holiday at his ranch, left the negotiations to his diplomatic aides. His secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, and national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, spent the weekend on the president’s grounds and kept him updated.

Bush stayed in seclusion and had not commented publicly about the draft, reached through negotiations between the US and France and announced at the United Nations early on Saturday.

But he planned to speak to reporters about the developments this morning, with Rice at his side.

The draft calls for Hezbollah to stop all military operations and for Israel to stop its offensive military drive into Lebanon. The proposal would allow Israel to strike back if Hezbollah were to break a ceasefire.

Lebanon urged the council to revise the resolution to demand that Israel pull its forces out of the country once hostilities end and hand over its positions to UN peacekeepers. The draft made no mention of an Israeli withdrawal.

The United States wants a second resolution that would form an international force that would move into Lebanon and help take control of the southern part of the country, where the militant Islamic group Hezbollah has been operating and based its fight against Israel.

“We’re trying to deal with a problem that has been festering and brewing in Lebanon now for years and years and years,” Rice said yesterday. “And so it’s not going to be solved by one resolution in the Security Council.

“I can’t say that you should rule out that there could be skirmishes of some kind for some time to come,” she said.

The Lebanese parliamentary speaker, a prominent Shiite who has been negotiating on behalf of Hezbollah, rejected the US-French plan because it did not include an immediate ceasefire and withdrawal of Israeli troops.

US officials seemed to acknowledge that they don’t expect Hezbollah to comply with the resolution, if it is approved.

Rice said that once the resolution passes, “then we’ll see who is for peace and who isn’t”.

Hadley said Hezbollah’s response to an approved resolution would be a “clarifying moment”.

“I don’t think you’ll see an instantaneous end to the violence,” Hadley said. “As you know, historically, these ceasefires take some time to go into effect, particularly if, unfortunately, Hezbollah were to reject it.”