Press Briefing National Security Advisor Steve Hadley (VIDEO)

Technorati Tags: National Security Advisor and Steve Hadley or Israeli Foreign Minister and LEBANON, or Israel and Resolution 1559 or Condoleezza Rice, or Middle East and UN Security Council,, or Prime Minister Olmert, and Hezbollah, or Prime Minister Siniora, and Jean-Marc de La Sabliere, or Mid East Cease-Fire, and VIDEO, Crawford Texas,

Press Briefing by National Security Advisor Steve Hadley, FULL STREAMING VIDEO, Crawford Middle School, Crawford, Texas, 9:00 A.M. CDT.

President George W. Bush and National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley participate in a teleconference with Prime Minister Tony Blair of the United Kingdom,

Sunday morning, Aug. 6, 2006 at the Bush Ranch in Crawford, Texas. White House photo by Eric Draper.

MR. HADLEY: Good morning. I'd be glad to answer any questions you folks have.

Q Steve, how are you going to get Hezbollah to sign on to this cessation of hostilities?

MR. HADLEY: The resolution will call for the Lebanese government and the Israeli government to accept the framework of a political arrangement that will be set out in this first resolution. And also, of course, to accept this call for a cessation, a full cessation of hostilities, which means Hezbollah attacks to stop and Israeli offensive operations to stop.

It's really going to be the Lebanese government that is going to have to set out and accept the arrangement on behalf of the Lebanese people. As you know, Hezbollah is a part of that government. They will have to take on that responsibility. In addition, of course, we are asking those countries with influence on Hezbollah to send a clear message, and that would be particularly Iran and Syria, to send a clear message to Hezbollah that it needs to accept the will of the international community and support the decision made by the Lebanese government.

I think it's interesting if you have a situation where the international community is calling for a full cessation of hostilities supported by the Lebanese government -- it was supported by the Israeli government, and Hezbollah says no, that will tell you something about who wants peace and who does not, and that will be a clarifying moment.

I think it's important to say that if, when this first resolution is adopted -- which we hope will be tomorrow afternoon or Tuesday morning -- I don't think you'll see an instantaneous end to the violence. As you know, historically, these cease-fires take some time to go into effect, particularly if, unfortunately, Hezbollah were to reject it.

But we would want, in any event, to move towards a second resolution, because everybody, I think, understands how this needs to end up -- which is that the Lebanese government needs to be able to exert it's authority throughout the country; the Lebanese army needs to be able to move south and take control of that territory, which it has not done and has not had for the last several years; and that it is going to need help to do so. And that's what the UNIFIL force, the United Nations force that is now there can do -- but also, the multinational force is so important to strengthen the hand of the Lebanese army when it moves into southern Lebanon, and to give Israel some assurance that if Israel then pulls out, Hezbollah will not come back in.

So everybody knows that's where that needs to end up. We need a second resolution to get there, and that's why once the first resolution is adopted, we will try and move very quickly towards a second resolution.

Q Steve, is the administration now going to talk to Iran and Syria to make this point, and try to have some back-and-forth with them? As you know, many of your critics say you haven't been talking to your enemies, who actually hold the key to this.

MR. HADLEY: Well, in some sense, you know, every time someone like me gets up and talks and says what they've just said, we've sent a message to Syria and Iran. I mean, it's not as if they don't hear what has been said.

Secondly, in terms of both of these countries, there are a number of countries that are sending the same message. That's really been an approach we have had both with respect to Syria and Iran, to try and get the international community and as many countries as we can sending the same message to Syria and Iran.

In terms of Iran, as you know, we are very anxious to enter into a discussion with Iran on their nuclear program. And we have proposed to do so if they will simply do what the international community, what the Europeans, who have been handling the diplomacy with them have called for, what the IAEA Board of Governors have called for, which is to suspend their nuclear enrichment programs.

So we would like very much to be entering into a discussion with Iran on that issue and potentially other issues. But they've got to take a step to show that they are willing to come into compliance with the international community.

Q On this particular issue, though, I know Syria says they don't want to be just sent messages, they want to have a conversation about that. Is the administration open to that?

MR. HADLEY: Throughout the firs term of this administration and into the second, we have had ongoing, very high-level discussions with Syria. They involved Secretary of State Powell, they involved Deputy Secretary Armitage, they involved Bill Burns, who was then Assistant Secretary of State. Those were a bit interrupted after the murder of Rafik Hariri, and evidence that the Syrian government may have been responsible for that. And at that point, we withdrew our ambassador. But we continue to have an embassy there, we continue to have a charg who does have -- attempt to have conversations with the Syrian government.

So the problem really is not that we haven't had conversations; the problem is we have not had action out of the Syrian government. It has been very clear what the international community has asked it to do. For example, with respect to Lebanon, there are three Security Council resolutions -- 1559, 1595*, 1680 -- all make clear what the parties need to do, including Syria. The problem isn't that Syria doesn't know what the international community is requiring of it -- the problem is Syria isn't doing it, that Syria is not acting.

Syria has a choice to do what the international community has asked -- to come into increasing relations in the international community, or to defy the international community and to continue to isolate itself and to become a handmaiden of Iran, which is really what they've become. And so the problem is not that Syria doesn't know what's being asked of it, it's not that a lot of people aren't talking to them, it's not that we haven't been talking to them over the years -- the problem is they're making choices, they're making bad choices. They need to make different choices.

Q Mr. Hadley, you say the first resolution won't bring about an instantaneous end to the violence, it's going to take a second resolution that will bring in this international force. Given that, when do you anticipate that we'll get a vote on the second resolution? And how soon do you expect a force to be able to get in there to back up the Lebanese army?

MR. HADLEY: We would hope -- let me just be clear: We would hope that the first resolution would, over time, result in the cessation of violence. It will call on the parties to do what I said: Hezbollah to stop its attacks, Israel to stop its offensive military operations. But I'm just saying as a practical matter, as you sort of look forward and try and anticipate what might happen, we know, historically, that even if all parties agree to the cease-fire, it takes time for it to come into place. And we want to move very quickly, in any event, towards the second resolution. Our hope is that it would be days, not weeks. The long pole in the tent, as they say, of course, is the formation of this multinational force that takes some time.

And, quite frankly, that's why we had to divide it into two resolutions, so that we could get the violence down, while we took the time that's going to be required to put together this multinational force. We hope we're going to do it as quickly as we can, but these things are difficult. We also hope, let me just say, that the adoption of the first resolution will free up the international community and a number of folks who may contribute to that force to be able to focus on that effort and put together the force as quickly as we can.

Q And just so we understand, the U.S. still has no intention of contributing forces to that force?

MR. HADLEY: We have talked about supporting that force, and there are things that we may be able to do with those kinds of unique capabilities the United States has -- you know, we've done this before with other forces -- lift, intelligence, command and control, logistics and those things. But, you know, given the history, we think that the idea of putting U.S. ground combat forces on the ground, this probably doesn't make sense; it isn't going to be something that will be designed to advance the objectives that the international community and that the President has set for us. So we think that wouldn't really advance the cause.

Q The resolution calls for Israel to stop its offensive military operations. But Israeli officials have always said these are defensive maneuvers against Hezbollah's attacks. So how do you reassure the Lebanese that, short of having Israeli forces withdraw from Lebanese territory, that Israel would stop its attacks and stop the violence?

MR. HADLEY: It will be called on to stop its offensive activities. And I think the choice of that word is to recognize, of course, that if Hezbollah does not cease all attacks, as the resolution will call for it to do, and does attack Israeli forces in southern Lebanon, they're going to have to have the right to defend themselves. That's what that's trying to do.

Q Has Israel had any offensive attacks yet?

MR. HADLEY: I'm sorry?

Q -- described anything so far as being offensive that they've been doing? Or this has all been defensive, right?

MR. HADLEY: Well, when people talk about offensive military actions they would be thinking about the air strikes that have occurred out of the southern area, and they would be thinking about the military operations that the ground forces have been undertaking. Those, I think, would be, in common parlance, viewed as offensive military operation.

Q Can you talk to us a little bit about the time you spent with the President yesterday? How much time did you spend briefing him? And, also, are there any plans for the President to call any of the other foreign leaders involved to, perhaps, move things along?

MR. HADLEY: Yes. The Secretary of State and I flew down on an airplane yesterday, spent most of the time on the phone with Israeli leaders, with those folks on the ground talking to the Lebanese leaders, because, obviously, we want to come up with a resolution that is acceptable to the Security Council and will work, in terms of Lebanon and Israel.

When we got down, we sat down with the President and reported on those conversations, so he knew exactly where we were. We also reviewed with him the situation, and, quite frankly, got some pretty clear guidance from him on the way forward as to how he wanted to proceed in not only the second resolution, but beyond. He's in the process, obviously, of developing an overall strategy for the Middle East as to sort of what comes next -- which is something that the President is good at and encourages us to do: How does this fit into an overall strategy? We had an opportunity to talk about that at lunch.

We then went off and did a number of things, in part carrying out what the President had directed us to do and then to get some additional information. Before dinner that evening we had another discussion and, in some sense, had a sort of strategic discussion of: Okay, let's assume we get through the first and second resolution, where do we head, in terms of the Middle East, more generally? This kind of a brainstorming session.

He has been in touch with world leaders on this issue, where it is appropriate and where it will advance the diplomacy. A lot of what's happening in New York right now is now into the details of draft language, which is not appropriate for heads of government to be negotiating Security Council text over the phone.

He did have a good discussion with Prime Minister Blair of the United Kingdom today. It was comparing notes on where we are, in terms of this first and second resolution; again, beginning to talk a little bit about the strategy for the Middle East more generally, after we get through this current crisis. It was a good conversation; it's a conversation they've had from time to time, for some time.

Q But no calls on the horizon, either to the Lebanese or Israeli Prime Minister?

MR. HADLEY: If it will advance diplomacy, the President will do it.

Q Mr. Hadley, given the ultimate goal of Iran, Syria and Hezbollah -- which is the destruction of Israel -- what's in it for them to go along with this resolution at this point in time?

MR. HADLEY: Well, they're going to have to make a decision about how far they're prepared to go in defying the international community. I think what's interesting is that the attack by Hezbollah came on the 12th of July, and by the 16th of July, four days later, you had a G8 statement by the leaders, the G8 leaders -- these are major industrialized countries -- that were meeting in St. Petersburg.

And, it's interesting, if you go back and look at that document, it sets out the framework that we have really been pursuing since then. One of the things that's very interesting is that it made clear -- unanimously adopted by France, the U.K., Germany, Italy, Japan, Canada, the United States and Russia -- it made clear that Hezbollah was the offending party. It was an unprovoked attack on Israel. It was in a position -- it did it in defiance of the Lebanese government, without informing the Lebanese government, and it had been able to do so because the Security Council resolutions that I referred to have not been carried out. And it also made clear that they were supported by Syria and Iran.

So the international community has made very clear who the offending party here is. It will now make clear in the Security Council resolutions what needs to happen to get out of this crisis. It will be calling on all states to facilitate that process. And Syria and Iran are going to have a choice to make as to whether they are prepared to try and confront and defy the international community.

Q Again, what is the incentive for them? Despite all of the language that came out of the G8, the weapons have continued to flow into Lebanon from Iran, probably elsewhere. So what's, you know, the carrot out there?

MR. HADLEY: Well, part of it is do they want to be increasingly isolated by the international community; do they want to be in a situation where there are financial measures and, ultimately, international sanctions imposed against them. There are sanctions that are available for violations of arms embargo, for example. There are penalties -- and we've made it clear, particularly, for example, in the nuclear discussions, that there are two paths, and if they defy the international community there will be consequences and sanctions, increasing isolation and increasing difficulty in doing business and being part of the international community. And the question is whether they want to walk down that road.

Q But what changes that now? I mean, Iran has been dealing with sanctions and isolation since --

MR. HADLEY: No, they haven't. On the contrary. Iran is very much integrated into the international community. We have had sanctions on Iran, but the international community has not, the Europeans have not. It's interesting, Iran is a different case than North Korea, which has already isolated itself. Iran has not. Iran has commercial relations, it has diplomatic relations, it sees itself as a regional power and a global power. And the question is whether it wants to go in a situation where the international community basically turns its back on Iran. That would be a situation we've never had before.

And, indeed, one of the things that has been, I believe, this President's achievement has been if you look at where we were with the Europeans in the 1990s about our views on Iran, it was not a shared conception. The Europeans, the Russians did not view Iran as a threat, let alone the strategic threat that it has become. And one of the things this President has done is get to the point where we have now the whole international community saying Iran is making a strategic challenge to us all by its support for terror, by its supporting Hezbollah, for the kinds of things we see in Lebanon, by the way it treats its own people, by its pursuit of nuclear weapons. Think about how difficult this crisis would be now if Iran had a nuclear weapon.

And what we're heartened by is the international community is beginning to understand what is at stake in the broader context of this current struggle. That's why the G8 report and statement was so important. That's why it's been interesting that Russia has gone from supporting Iran's nuclear program to, in recent years, cooperating with the rest of us in trying to rein that program in.

So there has been a sea change, and Iran needs to take that into account. It is really confronting the international community. And the international community is wakening to the challenge.

Q Steve, two quick ones for you. One is, have you had explicit conversations with Japan and Germany about ultimately imposing international sanctions on Iran? And the other is, do you need this second resolution -- you said in days, not weeks, do you need this second resolution to start talking with the logistics of an international force, or has that already begun?

MR. HADLEY: There have been some conversations, but there's been a reluctance to do it until we could get and be sure that the international framework is in place. And so we hope that this first resolution will hasten that.

Secondly, in terms of sanctions on Iran, as you know, there was an agreement in the nuclear context that if Iran did not suspend its enrichment activities and reprocessing activities and come back to the negotiating table, that there would be action in the U.N. Security Council. There was a resolution, as you know, adopted a week ago, that says that if Iran does not comply with what the international community has asked of it by August 31, it will return to the Security Council under Chapter 7 and under a provision of Chapter 7 that envisions economic sanctions. So that is already on the table, with respect to Iran.

Q So you think this consensus will hold, moving out of a nuclear context and into the Lebanon/Israel context?

MR. HADLEY: We would hope that it would. And we think it's interesting that in the middle of this Lebanese crisis we did have, I think, the United Nations Security Council did adopt, by a vote of 14-1 ,the resolution on Iran's nuclear program. And I think it was, in a way, fortuitous, that it was a signal to Iran, even in the Lebanese crisis, that the international community is united on the broader issue of Iran.

Q Mr. Hadley, is there any sense that Hezbollah's military capability has been weakened as a result of all this fighting?

MR. HADLEY: It's hard to know. I think the answer is that it has been weakened. That's certainly, I think, what the Israelis think. I think what is important is that the diplomacy now makes clear that we're not going back to the status quo ante; that a situation where Hezbollah controls the south, continues to be armed, basically has a kingdom within a kingdom -- that is not acceptable anymore to the Lebanese government or to the international community.

And that's what, of course, getting the Lebanese army into the south, getting the multinational force to support it is all about, to send that message to Hezbollah that the rules of the game have changed. And we think that will be a great setback to Hezbollah and a great thing that will strengthen the Lebanese government, and to become really a sovereign, democratic government in charge of all of its territory. That's where we want to go.

Q Can you talk about your plans and Secretary Rice's plans -- how long are you guys planning to stay here? And she had mentioned that she may not go to New York.

MR. HADLEY: I'm not aware that she said she may not go to New York.

Q She would go if and when it was necessary. Do you know --

MR. HADLEY: Well, I think what we hope is that we've had a good opportunity to speak with the President yesterday; we will today. We've also been on the phone pretty constantly working the diplomacy. Our hope would be that in New York there is agreement on this resolution. And then, of course, the issue will be whether the foreign ministers will come and sit in the Council to vote on it or not. I think that's still an issue that's' being worked. But we would like to get to the point where the resolution could be voted on, on Monday or Tuesday.

Steve Holland, last question.

Q You've said that the international force is the long pole in the tent. What are the complications in setting that up?

MR. HADLEY: It's the normal stuff: Who's going to contribute forces, when will they be ready to move, who's going to lift them to get them into the theater; once they're in the theater, where do they go. I mean, it's all the nuts and bolts of moving people and heavy equipment; getting a command and control, taking disparate pieces and integrating them into a single force with a unified command and control.

You know, these things are things militaries do -- they just take time, because they're big movements.

Thanks very much.

Q What is the timeframe for the force? When do you think the force might come in?

MR. HADLEY: We'd like to do it in days, not weeks, but it's going to take some time. We're going to try and move it as soon as we can, but I can't give you a timeframe.

Q So by the end of the week?

MR. HADLEY: I can't give you a time.

Q Wait, Steve. Days, not weeks -- that's for the deployment of the force, or the second resolution?

MR. HADLEY: We would like to have days not weeks for the second resolution, which would authorize the force. And, obviously, as soon after that as the force can move, the better, because it's what we all want -- it's what the international community is going to want, what the Lebanese and the Israelis -- how many days that is, how long that will take, I can't tell you. That's what the force planners are going to have to come up with, in putting this force together.

Q That's what my question was --

MR. HADLEY: I'm sorry.

Q -- the logistics of getting that force together.

MR. HADLEY: I got you. I didn't give you a good answer, I'm sorry.

Thank you.

END 9:23 A.M. CDT, * The correct resolution is 1559.

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Condoleezza Rice on Mid East Cease-Fire (VIDEO)

Technorati Tags: State Department and Secretary of State or Israeli Foreign Minister and LEBANON, or Israel and Resolution 1559 or Condoleezza Rice, or Middle East and UN Security Council,, or Prime Minister Olmert, and Hezbollah, or Prime Minister Siniora, and Jean-Marc de La Sabliere, or Mid East Cease-Fire, and VIDEO,

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Mid East Cease-Fire Resolution FULL STREAMING VIDEO

President George W. Bush meets with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at the White House Monday evening, July 31, 2006, to discuss her recent trip to the Middle East.

White House photo by Eric Draper.

Secretary Condoleezza Rice, Crawford Middle School, Crawford, Texas, August 6, 2006,Released by the White House Office of the Press Secretary, 8:00 A.M. CDT

SECRETARY RICE: Good morning. I'll take a few questions.

QUESTION: Secretary Rice, who or what are you counting on to bring Hezbollah on board, to get them to agree with this resolution?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, first of all, let me say that it's important that we vote the resolution in the Security Council, and we expect that to happen in the next day or two. And at that point, the international community will have put forward its views of how this war can abate, and then we'll see who is for peace and who isn't. The world is really watching now to see. Everyone has been talking about a cease-fire, an immediate cease-fire. I think even Hezbollah has from time to time talked about an immediate cease-fire.

This is a basis on which a cease-fire will take place, cessation of hostilities will take place so that there can't be a return to the status quo ante, which is extremely important to all the parties, because we don't want to create a situation in which we get out of this, and then you create the conditions in which Hezbollah, a state-within-a-state, goes across the line again, abducts soldiers, and we get another war.

And so we will ask everyone who has any influence with all the parties to talk to them about the importance of taking this opportunity. I just want to note that these things take a while to wind down. It is certainly not the case that probably all violence is going to stop, but the kind of large-scale violence that is really so hard on the Lebanese and Israeli people, the rocketing into Israel, the major offensive military operations, it's important to get those stopped, but it's a first step. We've then got to get to the second resolution, and the formation of an international force that can help the Lebanese government extend its authority throughout the country. So this is a first step.

QUESTION: Can I just follow up, something you said on the morning talk shows. How could it possibly be that the Lebanese government didn't know that thousands and thousands of rockets came into their territory? You gave the indication that they were oblivious to this.

SECRETARY RICE: No, I said that they did not know about the attack across the Blue Line for the abduction of Israeli soldiers. They have said that, and I believe them on that. The military wing of Hezbollah did this apparently without any authorization of the Lebanese government, which had an obligation to respect the Blue Line.

The real situation in Lebanon is that the south has had a vacuum in which Hezbollah has been operating. And the solution to this over the next several months is going to be to flow the authority of the Lebanese government and Lebanese forces with the help of international forces into the south, so that you don't have that vacuum.

Steve.

QUESTION: (Inaudible.)

SECRETARY RICE: Well, I would hope that you would see, very early on, an end to the kind of large-scale violence, large-scale military operations, firing of rockets, that we've been seeing. That needs to stop so that the situation can clear for the next phase, and the bringing in of international forces to help.

But I can't say that you should rule out that there could be skirmishes of some kind for some time to come. This isn't meant to be a permanent condition, it's meant to create conditions on which a more permanent, enduring cease-fire can be built.

QUESTION: Prime Minister Siniora says that the U.N. resolution, as in the draft, is inadequate, that they're looking for Israeli troops to withdraw from Lebanese territory immediately. Have you spoken with him, and what is the administration willing to offer in the first resolution? Are you willing to make some changes in that to include that in that resolution?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, again, we need to keep this in face. Yes, I've spoken to Prime Minister Siniora a couple of times, as a matter of fact, yesterday. I'm also speaking with the Israelis, as are others. The United States has been very much, with France, in the lead on this, but there are a number of countries that are talking to all the parties.

The way to think about this is that you need to have, in effect, forces stop in place, so that you don't have the large-scale military operations that really are so devastating to the country and so devastating to the people. There will have to be a phase of the flowing of Lebanese security forces into the south. Everybody wants to have that happen as quickly as possible, but they need international assistance to do it. No one wants to see Israel permanently in Lebanon, nobody wants that. The Israelis don't want it, the Lebanese don't want it.

And so I think there's a basis here for moving forward. We are not in a position to stop after the first resolution, people are absolutely right about that. That would not be a stable equilibrium. So we need to get the first resolution, get the large-scale violence stopped, get the Lebanese forces ready to flow in, get security -- international forces to help them, and do that really rather quickly. So I want to emphasize this is a first step, not the only step.

QUESTION: Can you tell us about what the President has had to say about this, and what interactions you've had with him since you've been here?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, I've been, obviously -- and before we left Washington -- in constant contact with the President; came back from the meetings that I'd had in the Middle East and came directly to talk to him. Obviously, yesterday we've been in fairly intensive conversation about this, as we've been moving forward toward the resolution.

But his view is very strong on this, and it's not unlike what he stated at the very beginning of this crisis, when we were in, I think, Germany, when this really started, which is that this is really now an opportunity to extend the authority of the Lebanese government throughout its own territory. That really has to be the goal. Everybody is focused on the international forces, but the international forces are there to assist in the important work of getting the Lebanese to fill the vacuum that has developed in the south. That's, in large part, why you have a kind of state-within-a-state operating there. The Lebanese have also been very clear -- Prime Minister Siniora, for instance, when he was in Rome, that the Lebanese understand their responsibilities under the Taif Accords, which were signed in 1989, and under resolution 1559, which says that there should be no armed groups outside the authority of the Lebanese government.

The very fact that that Taif Accord was signed in 1989 lets you know how longstanding this problem is in Lebanon, and it goes well back before that. It took some almost 10 years to get to the Taif Accords. So you have to understand that we're trying to deal with a problem that has been festering and brewing in Lebanon now for years and years and years.

And so it's not going to be solved by one resolution in the Security Council. This is one step to stop the large-scale violence so that we can begin to then address these underlying problems. But what this resolution has in it that would not have been there if we had done this a couple weeks ago is a kind of political basis for creating those conditions in which the parties -- in which Lebanon can flow its authority south.

QUESTION: Are you expecting a unanimous vote in the U.N., and what can you tell us about any work that's being done on the second resolution?

SECRETARY RICE: I would, obviously, always hope for a unanimous vote.

QUESTION: (Inaudible.)

SECRETARY RICE: All that I know is that both the French permanent representative, Jean-Marc de La Sabliere and John Bolton, our permanent representative, represented the conversations in the Security Council yesterday as positive. We will see -- there will be further discussions today. I would urge, and I think we are urging all states of the Security Council now to back this resolution as a first step toward not just an end to the crisis, but as a first step to moving to a more stable set of solutions. So that's -- the mood in the Council has been very good, and I think you will see support for the resolution.

Yes.

QUESTION: What about the second resolution?

SECRETARY RICE: Oh, the second resolution. This resolution anticipates a second resolution. I think work will begin on that very, very quickly. People have, obviously, ideas, and have been talking about it. There's been some work done, but it's not been done in a setting with the United States and other parties.

QUESTION: Madam Secretary, Hezbollah has indicated that it will not cease its attacks until every last Israeli soldier is out of Lebanon, not to be prepared -- but out of Lebanon. Is that a necessary, in your mind, first step at ending the immediate violence, is for a complete Israeli withdrawal?

SECRETARY RICE: The resolution does not anticipate and does not expect a complete Israeli withdrawal in the first phase, no, because this is a resolution that ceases hostilities with forces in place, but requires that the major military operations, offensive military operations, the firing of rockets -- the kind of violence that really is so hard on civilian populations -- that that's got to stop.

Now I know Hezbollah has said all kinds of things. I've heard, "we should have an immediate cease-fire," I've heard, "we'll keep fighting," I've heard all of those things. What we need to focus on, when this Security Council resolution is passed, we're going too know who really did want to stop violence and who didn't. We've had an awful lot of calls over the last couple of weeks for an immediate cessation of hostilities, an immediate cessation of hostilities. The United States has been very clear that we did have to have some political basis to make clear that that cessation of hostilities was not going to countenance a return to the status quo ante. This resolution does that. And now we're going to see who is for peace and who isn't.

QUESTION: Who should rebuild Lebanon after the violence has ceased? Is it the U.S. role?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, the U.S. will certainly play a role in the rebuilding of Lebanon. We have committed to that. The Rome declaration commits to an international effort to rebuild Lebanon -- not just a U.S. effort, not just a French effort, a complete international effort. And let's remember, too, that the Saudis have already made known that they're going to make a very large donation to the rebuilding of Lebanon. So I think the rebuilding of Lebanon will be well underway when the violence stops and when the political constituents are there.

QUESTION: Madam Secretary, two questions. The first, a couple of weeks ago, when there were calls for an immediate cessation of violence, you said you wanted to provide a permanent solution. Why shouldn't we see this two-state solution as precisely what you were arguing against then? And second, how is that you came up with agreement that didn't have fundamentals that the Lebanese wanted, like an immediate cessation of violence, a withdrawal of the Israeli troops and a return of displaced civilians?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, there's a very simple answer to the second: there are things the Israelis wanted and things the Lebanese wanted, and everybody wasn't going to get everything that they wanted. This is the international community's effort to bring about an equitable, reasonable basis for a cessation of hostilities of the kind that are so devastating to civilian populations. And so I would expect that there is going to be a lot of discussion on how to move forward. But I would hope that the parties are all going to take the opportunity before them to stop the kind of terrible violence that we've been seeing against Israeli populations, against Lebanese populations.

On the first point, we do insist that there is -- that when there is a cease-fire, that it's going to have to be on an enduring basis, which is why bringing forces in to support Lebanon's flow of its own forces to the south and to support conditions where there can't be a return to the status quo ante is so important.

But what we wanted to do was to not have an unconditional cease-fire with no political principles, no view of what the south is going to look like when this is finally resolved. It took some time -- the G8 statement was the first step. It then took some time going out to the region, talking to the Lebanese, talking to the Israelis. Let me remind that at the Rome conference, Prime Minister Siniora did a lot of work in his council of ministers to get backing, including of the two Hezbollah ministers in his cabinet, of a set of a principles that could move this forward. Now, Lebanon isn't going to have all of the principles there, or the full principles there that they would like; Israel, I'm sure, is not going to have all of them there that they would like.

But this is a first step. It's a good basis for ending large-scale violence, it's a good basis for creating conditions in which there can't be a return to the status quo ante, and it's a good basis for beginning to flow the authority of the Lebanese government into the south so that this can't happen again.

Last question.

QUESTION: Madam Secretary, what role have China and Russia played in this latest negotiations. Did we (inaudible.)

SECRETARY RICE: Well, yes. I know that there have been conversations with the Russians, including conversations with the Russian leadership about this. And we have talked with the Russians, as well as have others, and so far we've gotten positive soundings from Russia, but I don't want to speak for them. This is an important meeting today, to take account. Yesterday the meeting was simply to have Jean-Marc de La Sabliere and John Bolton go through the resolution with the other permanent representatives, let them know what was in it, the thinking behind each of those steps. I'm sure that overnight instructions were then passed to delegations. They then will have discussion today.

We will see where we are at the end of the day, but the urgency now is on this basis, which we and the French think is a very good basis, and which we heard very favorable remarks about yesterday, to try to vote this resolution in the next day or two days, and then to allow a stop to the large-scale violence, so that we can move to the next step, which is starting to flow the authority of the Lebanese government and the Lebanese forces into its own territory.

I'm sorry, last question. Yes.

QUESTION: Same region, different problem. Israel has arrested the speaker of the Palestinian parliament overnight. Was that a helpful step?

SECRETARY RICE: You mean, in the Palestinian Territories. We've expressed concerns about what may be going on in the Palestinian Territories, too, as you know. I went there and saw Abu Mazen. It would be a very good step if, as they have been told to do by everybody in the region, if the military wing of Hamas would release that abducted Israeli soldier. That needs to be done.

It's probably not surprising that this took place by the military wing of Hamas at the time that Abu Mazen was moving towards some understandings with the political -- the people who were elected from Hamas about how they might move toward Quartet principles. It's also, perhaps, not surprising that it took place at a time when there was anticipation that there might be a meeting between Prime Minister Olmert and President Abbas.

There is a method to what these terrorists and extremist groups are doing -- they are trying to destroy the foundation for democratic and moderate states in Lebanon, in Iraq, in the Palestinian Territories. That's what they're trying to do. And so it's not surprising that people who have no future in a moderate and democratic Middle East would try to destroy it. So that's really the way forward. We're continuing to work with both the Israelis and the Palestinians, as well, even as the situation in Lebanon unfolds.

QUESTION: Are you -- go to New York?

SECRETARY RICE: I will go to New York when and if necessary. My understanding is that we really believe that we can, as I said last week, we really now -- were within days. I think we said that when I came back from the Middle East. I think we're still within a couple of days. And I would expect that there will be a meeting in New York very shortly, probably within the next couple of days.

All right. Thanks. Thank you very much.

END 8:18 A.M. CDT, Released on August 6, 2006

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