On Monday, President Bush ruled out sending U.S. troops to Lebanon because it would inflame the Arab streets and recall the Beirut barracks bombing that killed 241 Americans in 1983.
“There’s been a history in Lebanon with U.S. troops,” Bush told reporters at his ranch in Crawford, Texas.
It was a reference to the 220 Marines and 21 other American service members who were killed by a suicide bomber while participating in an international peacekeeping force after Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon. President Ronald Reagan withdrew U.S. forces several months after the attack.
On Monday, Bush made it clear U.S. troops would not be part of a multinational peacekeeping force currently being contemplated by the United Nations.
“If the international force would like some help with logistics and command and control, we’d be willing to offer logistics and command and control,” Bush said at the news conference.
He said sending U.S. troops into Lebanon would be like sending them into the bloody Darfur region of Sudan.
“Those troops would create a sensation around the world that may not enable us to achieve our objective,” he said.
Bush was joined at the news conference by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who downplayed opposition to the first of two proposed U.N. Security Council resolutions aimed at ending the crisis. The first resolution calls on Hezbollah and Israel to stop fighting and places an embargo on unauthorized arms shipments into southern Lebanon.
“This particular resolution is important because it sets an agenda for the basis for a sustainable peace,” Rice said. “And so, it will not surprise you that the Lebanese have views of what should be on that agenda. The Israelis have views of what should be on that agenda. They aren’t always the same views.”
Bush cautioned against creating a “vacuum” in southern Lebanon that would allow Hezbollah to rearm. He also called for a solution to the conflict’s “root problem” — the existence of Hezbollah, an armed militia, inside the sovereign state of Lebanon.
If passed, the first resolution would be followed by a second resolution creating the international peacekeeping force.
