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CNN Live Sunday

Condoleezza Rice Headed to Middle East Tonight; More Explosions in Beirut

Aired July 23, 2006 - 17:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Day 12 of the fighting in the Middle East, and no end in sight. Will the U.S. step in? We're going to have the latest on the attacks and the outlook for a diplomatic solution.
Watching and covering it all, CNN's correspondents throughout the region. You are going to get the best of CNN's in depth reporting on the Middle East crisis.

From the CNN global headquarters in Atlanta, I'm Carol Lin. Let's bring you up to speed on what we know right now.

Israel pounds Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon. Two port cities were targeted today: Sidon and Tyre. Hospital officials say a civilian was killed and at least 20 wounded.

Now, Israel says two of its civilians were killed by Hezbollah rockets. Military officials say more than 60 rockets fell on northern Israel.

And, on the diplomatic front, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is headed for the region tonight. She is going to meet with Israel's prime minister and the Palestinian Authority president.

As we go to air, we're getting word of more explosions in and around Beirut, where it is midnight right now. The Israeli Defense Forces confirming military operations there. So let's get straight to CNN's Becky Anderson for the very latest.

Becky, what can you tell us?

BECKY ANDERSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I can hear those just going on about four or five minutes drive away from me. I'm in central Beirut here, sort of west Beirut, right in the center where there's not an awful lot of activity anywhere at all. The streets are completely empty. It is very late here, but the streets have been empty for days and days and days.

We got out to the southern suburbs, which were absolutely pounded by Israeli air strikes last night and again today. Some of the biggest explosions I've heard to date we heard earlier on today.

We were shown around the areas that have been damaged, and they are badly wiped out (inaudible) shown around by one of these Hezbollah community leaders. I mean, he restricted what we were seeing, so the pictures that you see will be pictures of an area that we were shown around, and that was it, effectively.

But you could see smoke still rising, evidence that they'd been newly bombed. Nobody could live in these areas. Anybody who was left there, on assumes, had left or has died in these areas. We put it to the community leader that things looked pretty grim in this area. He said, as I say, most people had left or had died.

So it's a really difficult situation here in Beirut. It does feel certainly as if the voluming of bombing has increased dramatically over the last 24 hours in this area alone. I can't speak for any other areas, but just in this area alone.

And one wonders whether that is because Condoleezza Rice is on her way. Maybe there is more of a volume of bombing ahead of that perhaps with a view to calming things down once she gets here. I can't say that for sure, but that certainly is the way the situation feels here. A lot of tension tonight once again here in Beirut. Back to you.

LIN: Becky Anderson, stay safe out there. We're going to check with you throughout the night.

But in the meantime, across the border, more Hezbollah rockets rained down on northern Israel today, and Haifa bore the brunt of those attacks. CNN's Fionnuala Sweeney is there.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FIONNUALA SWEENEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Day 13 of this conflict under way, and there are still sustained rocket attacks on the city of Haifa in northern Israel and indeed, across the northern band of Israel. Throughout this day in Haifa, two people were killed and at least 15 others injured when there were a number of rocket attacks on various parts of the city.

This has been perhaps the most sustained attack on the city over the last 12 or 13 days or so, and there's a definite sense that, as one looks around Haifa this evening, of there being a distinct lack of buzz that one might expect from Israel's third largest city.

The protocol is that when the air raid sirens go off, people take cover. They have about 30 seconds to get into their homes, perhaps into the reinforced rooms that each Israeli building has. And there, they wait for the rockets, which tend to fall very shortly afterward, sometimes even before the air rides have fallen silent.

However, in one incident earlier today, there was, in fact, a rocket which fell without any air raid siren warning at all, And in that rocket attack, a house suffered a direct hit. There were gas explosions following that because the house had a gas system, and three people were injured. An indication here that perhaps while the city appears to be going about its business as usual, there is really a distinct air of uneasiness and tension.

Fionnuala Sweeney, CNN, Haifa, northern Israel.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: The 12 days of fighting is finally getting the international community talking about solutions. CNN's Matthew Chance is in Jerusalem very effectively showing us the impact of the violence on the diplomatic dance.

Matthew, the U.S. secretary of state is expected to be dining with Israel's foreign minister on Monday night. What else have you heard?

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, I've certainly heard that many people in this region are hoping that Condoleezza Rice can quicken the pace of that diplomatic dance. She will be, as you say, arriving in the region tomorrow.

She'll be meeting with Israeli officials, other of the players as well to try and see if she can move towards what the United States and what Israel wants, which is a cease-fire, but a cease-fire that would also deny Hezbollah access to the border of Israel.

Much of the international community is now focused on this. Over the past day or so, we've been seeing European foreign ministers here in Israel meeting Israeli leaders, trying to see if they can bring the situation closer to a cease-fire as well.

Not just to get Israel to stop its campaign of bombardment in southern Lebanon, which is causing, as we've heard, a great deal of casualties and a lot of concern in the international community, but also to make sure that Hezbollah can no longer hurl its missiles into Israel.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

Despite Israel's barrage of southern Lebanon, Hezbollah's missiles continue to wreak havoc. The targets are random. Towns across northern Israel are under threat.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So far at Rambam Medical Center admitted eight patients, eight casualties, one with severe injuries, two middle injuries, two light injuries, and three area response (ph).

CHANCE: But with a massive Israeli tank force poised on the Lebanon border, international efforts to find a diplomatic solution are finally being stepped up. The French and German foreign ministers have been touring Israel's north and meeting Israeli officials to ask for restraint.

PHILIPPE DOUSTE-BLAZY, FRENCH FOREIGN MINISTER: My question to Jerusalem and Beirut is the same. How do we reach as quickly as possible a cease-fire?

CHANCE: One answer may be the deployment of an international force in southern Lebanon, looking for a way to avoid a full-scale invasion. Israel says it might agree.

SHIMON PERES, ISRAELI VICE PREMIER: A major problem today is the missiles and the rockets. And the problem is the national force can control the onslaught of missiles and rockets and the use of them. Otherwise there is no mission.

CHANCE: There's been a U.N. force in southern Lebanon for 28 years, but it's had a limited mission. Both Israel and the U.S. see it as ineffective. Israeli officials have suggested NATO could be tapped to lead any future mission. It's robust and has experience in tough theaters like Afghanistan. NATO officials say there's been no discussion with them yet.

But as this crisis shows little sign of easing, its hoped the coming days may produce something, a possible way out.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

Well, much will depend, of course, on what pressure the United States and what pressure Condoleezza Rice is willing to bring to bear on Israel. So far, Washington has sat by and allowed its ally to use whatever force it wants to smash Hezbollah -- Carol?

LIN: Matthew Chance live in Jerusalem. Thank you.

No one, except perhaps the Israeli forces, has a better advantage of Israel's tactics than our own Christiane Amanpour, who is near the Israeli-Lebanese border.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: An Israeli tank rumbles back across the border from Lebanon after battling Hezbollah militants in the small, hilltop town of Maroun al- Ras. Olhad (ph), the tank commander, said it was a very hard battle. Two of their tanks were ambushed.

"They were ready for us. They have a lot of ammunition, they have guns, they have everything they need," he says. In all, six Israeli soldiers were killed and several more were wounded in the fight for this one village.

Even though the army high command says they've now captured the village, their helicopters and tanks are still shelling it, and their soldiers are still trading fire there with Hezbollah. And Hezbollah's Katyushas keep coming, volleys of them into northern Israel. Flames from several days of rocket fire lick the edges of Kiryat Shmona, the biggest Israeli town up here.

BRIG. GEN. SHUKI SHACHAR, ISRAELI DEPUTY NORTHERN COMMANDER: I didn't say that we're making great. I said that we're operating our forces according to the situation in the area, and it's the process that needs time to accomplish the missions.

AMANPOUR: General Shachar says Hezbollah has built up a big arsenal and dug in positions along the border in the six years since Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon.

SHACHAR: Thousands of missiles are under the ground. Even if we hit about 40, 50 percent of the missiles, they still have thousands still with them.

AMANPOUR: Israel says its fighter bombers have made 1,500 sorties, and they've not finished the air war yet. From the ground, they say they've fired more than 20,000 rounds of artillery, and their infantry and special forces are penetrating deeper into southern Lebanon, pushing Hezbollah back.

But far from promising a quick end, the army chiefs tell the Israeli public to be patient. The Hezbollah flag is still flying.

Christiane Amanpour, CNN, on the northern Israeli front.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: So getting back to this notion of solutions -- now Lebanon would have to agree to a multinational force occupying the south. Of course, Israel supports the idea, but this is what John Bolton, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN BOLTON, U.S. AMBASSADOR THE U.N.: We haven't discussed the possibility of U.S. boots on the ground in Lebanon. But I think that we want to be open minded on what's doable here. The main point being to see that Hezbollah does not return to its armed militant capacity threatening Israel, and that the institution of the government of Lebanon cover the whole country.

I think you want to avoid a situation where a multinational force takes over responsibility that really we ought to be encouraging and assisting the government of Lebanon to take up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LIN: So next we are going to go in deeper on the secretary of state's trip to the Middle East. What should happen? What are those conversations going to be like? But first, we want to catch you up on the other big stories happening today.

Ariel Sharon, Israel's former prime minister, is taking a turn for the worse. The 78-year-old former prime minister has been comatose since suffering a massive stroke since early January. And doctors say his kidney function is worsening and fluids are building up in his body.

Saddam Hussein's hunger strike is technically over. He is hooked up to a feeding tube now. Saddam and three co-defendants have been refusing meals since the start of the month to protest court proceedings against them.

And your next trip to the pump is going to cost more than ever. Gas prices rose nearly 2 cents over the past two weeks to a new record high. According to the Lundberg Survey, the national average for self serve regular is now $3.02 a gallon.

Indiana police are on the hunt for a killer. They say one or more snipers opened fire on two pickup trucks along I-65 early this morning killing one person and injuring another. Police aren't sure if the shots came from the roadside or a nearby overpass.

And six days after a blackout knocked out power to some 100,000 people in Queens, half of them are still waiting to be reconnected. Officials blame the outages on last week's northeast heat wave.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is headed for Israel tonight. She won't talk to Hezbollah or its sponsor Syria, so what will she do to stop the fighting? We are live at the White House after the break.

Plus, no food, water, or medicine in parts of Lebanon. We are going to take a closer look at the humanitarian crisis unfolding in the region.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: Day 12 of the Middle East crisis, and here is what we know right now. Israeli warplanes continue to blast Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon and Beirut. Hezbollah fired more than 60 rockets at northern Israel.

And Israel is suggesting a possible solution to the crisis: deploying a multinational peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon. But Israel insists the force would have to be stronger than the U.N. force there now in the region.

And Lebanon's minister of foreign affairs says two Israeli soldiers kidnapped by Hezbollah militants are, quote, "in good health and safe." The capture of those soldiers two weeks ago sparked the current crisis.

Now, just this afternoon President Bush met with top Saudi officials about the Middle East crisis, that as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice prepares to head to the region on a diplomatic mission. CNN's Kathleen Koch has more now from the White House.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): From a weekend in Crawford, Texas, President Bush met with top Saudi diplomats. The U.S. hopes its Arab ally will sway its neighbor Syria to pressure Hezbollah to free the Israeli soldiers and stop shelling Israel. Since the start of the crisis, the White House has maintained U.S. negotiations with Syria would be pointless.

JOSH BOLTEN, WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: During the entirety of the first term, the administration had a number of very close, direct contacts with the Syrian government, which didn't do any good. They continued to allow terrorism to flourish. They supported it. They supported Hezbollah.

KOCH: But one U.S. lawmaker warned it's dangerous to let another country make U.S. arguments.

SEN. CHRIS DODD (D), CONNECTICUT: You cannot outsource your diplomacy here. We have too many issues that we have to resolve.

KOCH: Syria maintains it would welcome direct talks with the U.S. about the ongoing crisis.

DR. IMAD MOUSTAPHA, SYRIA'S AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED STATES: If the United States wants to involve in serious diplomacy, of course Damascus is more than willing to engage.

KOCH: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice joined in the meeting before heading to the region for talks. While there, Rice will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, before heading on to an international conference on the Middle East in Rome.

While Israel welcomes her visit as timely, neither the U.S. nor Israel are ready to talk timetables for a cease-fire.

DANIEL AYALON, ISRAELI AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED STATES: This battle has to be won. And the way to win this battle against the terrorists and against Iran and Syria is not by timing it with a stopper, with a stopwatch. It's by reaching the results. It may take a few days more, a few weeks more. I cannot tell you what is the time frame.

KOCH: The U.S. is going to talk about the possibility of a new international peacekeeping force in Lebanon, including an Israeli proposal to include NATO forces.

JOHN BOLTON, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED NATIONS: We haven't discussed the possibility of U.S. boots on the ground in Lebanon, but I think that we want to be open-minded on what's doable here.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KOCH: Diplomats delivered to President Bush a letter with a six- point plan for peace from Saudi King Abdullah. It includes an immediate cease-fire and puts off dismantling Hezbollah, both measures the White House opposes -- Carol?

LIN: All right. Thanks very much, Kathleen.

Now, while its bombs fell across southern Lebanon today, Israel said it would accept a NATO-led international force to keep peace along the Lebanese border. Now, CNN military analyst, retired Brigadier General James "Spider" Marks joins us now by telephone.

Spider, so let's start from just the basic premise of this. Let's say it's proposed. Lebanon's government has to agree to this notion, right?

JAMES "SPIDER" MARKS, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Oh, absolutely, as would Israel. And what they've seen over the past 28 years, with UNIFIL in the region, is a very poor track record of anything that would amount to an ability to interject itself between potentially warring parties.

LIN: UNIFIL, the current U.N. force in the region.

MARKS: Correct.

LIN: All right. So if Lebanon's government agrees to this, there is also the question of, isn't the security of their own country and the stopping of a dangerous militant organization, a terrorist organization by U.S. standards, isn't it the government's responsibility to do that?

MARKS: Oh, absolutely, Carol. In fact, those are two separate things.

Number one is: How do you disarm Hezbollah? Israel is deciding this is how they're going to do it, and they've been trying to do it for the last 12 days, and they're going to keep working it.

The second piece is: What would an international force look like? And what would be its task and what would be its purpose, once it assumes control of some space within Lebanon that ideally would be a buffer zone?

That has to be a force that has some backbone, and it's got to have some capabilities so that it can get involved if things start to ratchet up. It can't simply be a force that monitors, and surveils, and then gets out of the way if it's starting to get hot again. They've got to be able to stand in between potentially warring factions and get involved.

LIN: Well, who has the firepower and the credibility, other than the United States, which has said it would not participate necessarily in this war, and Great Britain?

MARKS: Well, certainly the European Union has a lot of great capabilities, and there are other nations around the world that have tremendous military capabilities. It's just a matter -- it's a diplomatic issue whether they want to be involved.

LIN: But Hezbollah is not necessarily a tangible monolithic organization to go after. You know, you're not necessarily going to see uniforms on the street. Already Israel may very well be facing hand-to-hand combat on the ground if it sends more ground forces in. So what sort of resistance is an international, multinational force likely to encounter?

MARKS: Well, a multinational force would come in to be peacekeepers, not peace-makers, at least initially. They have to have the ability to make peace, and that means to break things and kill people as necessary.

But you've touched on the very key issue, and that is: How do you discern Hezbollah and its efforts, which would be inevitable, to come back into a buffer zone and to resume their positions and to resume activities of what they know as normal?

That's a very tough order, and it requires presence on the ground, in sufficient number, and rules of engagement of this international force that have the ability and have the authority to pull the trigger as necessary. A lot of strong intelligence and a lot of combat talk.

LIN: All right, so now we're in a catch-22. You can't put a multinational force in there to keep the peace if there's no peace to be had, so how is that peace attained then?

MARKS: Well, the peace will be -- here's the deal. The peace will be attained by Israel, over the course of the next few days, deciding that it has achieved its objective. Now, that will be their definition of peace. You and I could debate that, and it would be debatable.

But the certain conditions on the ground will have to meet certain conditions before an international force would get involved, and the peace would have to be established. An international force is not going to come into town and parachute into the region and inject itself and make peace; it is going to try to keep a peace that's established. And that's what we're seeing right now Israel trying to do.

LIN: Retired Brigadier General James "Spider" Marks, thank you very much. You have been invaluable this weekend. Appreciate the time.

MARKS: Thanks, Carol.

LIN: Well, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan described to our Larry King the scene out of "Apocalypse Now." Nearly a million people, actually, on the run without food or water. This was an exclusive for Larry. The secretary's opinion on who the true victims really are.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KOFI ANNAN, U.N. SECRETARY-GENERAL: ... Israel has made it clear that its target is Hezbollah. It has also stated that it has no quarrel with the Lebanese people or the Lebanese government.

In these circumstances, if it had focused its target narrowly on Hezbollah and Hezbollah targets, it would be understandable. But the (INAUDIBLE) bombing of Lebanese civilian infrastructure, of bridges, of the airports, and the blockade imposed on Lebanon, both sea and land, and the destruction of the bridge is making it very difficult for people to move around.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LIN: Everywhere the story is happening, CNN is there. We've got extensive coverage of the Middle East crisis, and it continues all day and all tonight.

In the meantime, more on what Kofi Annan was talking about, a humanitarian crisis looming in Lebanon. Up next, I'm going to speak with one relief agency that's on the ground in Beirut. The situation there is bad and getting worse. And later, will international troops be sent to the border? And what about the U.N. troops already there? That story, more on that story, to come.

You're watching CNN, the most trusted name in news.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: Welcome back to our coverage of the Middle East crisis. Now, here is what we know right now.

Saudi Arabia is urging President Bush to push for an immediate cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah. Saudi officials made that request today in a meeting with the president and Condoleezza Rice. The secretary of state flies out to the region tonight.

And more across-border attacks between Israel and Hezbollah militants. Today, Israel bombed areas in south Lebanon and Beirut, and Hezbollah fired dozens more rockets into northern Israel.

And a warning from Syria. The country's information minister says Syria will join the conflict if Israeli ground forces come within 12 miles of the Syrian capital. Damascus isn't far from the Lebanese border.

Now, displaced and desperate, more than half a million Lebanese have fled the fighting. Alessio Vinci reports on the humanitarian crisis brewing in southern Lebanon.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALESSIO VINCI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The extent of the damage in this suburb of southern Beirut caught the top U.N. humanitarian official by surprise. It's a violation of humanitarian law, he said, far more extensive than he thought. He asked locals how many people died as a result of the latest strikes, but there is no firm answer.

JAN EGELAND, U.N. RELIEF COORDINATOR: People are still under the rubble, and they don't know how many (INAUDIBLE)

VINCI: This area of southern Beirut continues to be a target of the Israeli military. We don't know what may have been hidden behind these buildings or in between these houses, but what we do see is or was an extensive civilian presence, and they are gone now.

A few dare to briefly come back in between air strikes to collect their belongings. Ali Rammal tells me how, just a few ago, he was watching the World Cup in his apartment. "All I took is this," he says. "I just came back because in the mountains we don't have anything."

Lebanon faces a humanitarian crisis, especially in the southern part of the country that has seen the worst fighting. The World Health Organization says 600,000 people have been displaced by the fighting. EGELAND: Everything's needed here. Medical supplies very urgently needed, water and sanitation for those who have fled. We need to get a big operation going. We have 50 trucks being purchased as we speak. Those trucks will be the main convoys. We have feed the vessels now being contracted to go from Cyprus to Beirut and to Tyre in the south.

VINCI: But Egeland said the ongoing conflict is making it difficult, if not impossible, for critical supplies to reach those in need and called once again for an immediate cessation of hostilities.

EGELAND: If it continues like this, there will just be more and more civilian casualties, more and more dead children, more and more wounded children struggling to save their lives. We are setting up a major relief operation, but of course the violence has to stop.

The rockets going into Israel have to stop, and the enormous bombardments that we're seeing here, with one block after the other being leveled, has to stop because it's costing too many lives.

VINCI: However, there appears to be no letup from either side, and a growing number of civilians is caught in the middle.

Alessio Vinci, CNN, Beirut.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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