Haaretz
Cheshvan 26, 5767
The United States has helped remove
more than 50,000 unexploded bombs in southern Lebanon since the end of the
war last August with Israel, a senior U.S. official said on
Thursday.
The U.S. government's aid chief, Randall Tobias, said
unexploded bombs remained a major problem in Lebanon where Israel dropped
many thousands of cluster bombs. Many of those bombs are reported to be
U.S.-made.
"The effort to remove the unexploded ordnance is moving
along very aggressively and we're really making a lot of progress," said
Tobias, who visited Lebanon last month to check on U.S. aid work
there.
"At the time I was there, the estimate was that we had
removed or assisted in the removal of about 50,000 pieces of unexploded
ordnance," he added.
Other nations and the United Nations are also
involved in the effort to remove unexploded ordnance in southern
Lebanon.
The bombs pose a huge danger to displaced civilians trying
to return to their villages after the 34-day war that pitted Hezbollah
militants in Lebanon against Israel.
The State Department is
investigating whether Israel violated U.S. rules in its use of U.S.-made
rockets armed with cluster bombs in Lebanon. A State Department spokesman
said the investigation was ongoing.
Israel has defended its right
to use cluster bombs and says it only deploys them in accordance with
international law.
Cluster bombs burst into bomblets and spread out
near the ground. The United Nations has called for a freeze on the use of
those bombs in or near populated areas.
The United States promised
about e250 million in aid for Lebanon following the war and Tobias said
about $100 million had been spent so far.
He said Washington was
involved in building bridges and in trying to clean up after an oil spill
during the war that marred parts of Lebanon's coastline and hit the
fishing industry hard.
Immediately after the war, Hezbollah moved
quickly to help those displaced by the war, handing out money to people in
southern Lebanon whose homes were bombed.
U.S. officials voiced
strong concern at the time that Hezbollah's quick response would give the
militant group the upper hand in winning the hearts and minds of the local
population and that embattled Prime Minister Fuad Siniora's government
would be perceived as being too slow to react.
Tobias said his
agency was working hard to "build capacity" in Siniora's government and he
felt U.S. assistance was helping with this goal.
"It [U.S.
assistance] needs to be seen as an effort to help the legitimate
government of Lebanon address the needs of the people," he said.
An
international donors conference on Lebanon is expected to take place in
Paris in January and Tobias urged other nations to follow through on about
$900 million in aid pledged at a meeting in Stockholm in
September.
"We really need to urge everyone to move as quickly as
they can to move their words into action on the ground. There really is a
significant need for help," he said.