Losing Lebanon




Once a beacon of democracy in the Middle East, Lebanon is veering toward civil war. Here's what went wrong.

It's never a good sign for a country when the Prime Minister and most of his Cabinet members spend their days barricaded in an Ottoman-era compound. That's what Fouad Siniora and Lebanon's other top officials have done since Nov. 21, when gunmen assassinated Industry Minister Pierre Gemayel in broad daylight.

Siniora's worries go beyond his personal safety. With Lebanon still trying to recover from last summer's 34-day war between Israel and the Shi'ite militant group Hizballah, the government has seen its authority undermined, renewed meddling from the country's neighbors and the growing assertiveness of Hizballah. Organized by Hizballah and its allies, about 800,000 protesters—a rather grand figure in a country of just 3.8 million—gathered in the center of Beirut last Friday to demand the resignation of Siniora. At the time, Lebanon's leader was in his barracks, surrounded by machine guns and barbed wire.

Lebanon wasn't supposed to turn out this way. In March of last year, President George W. Bush was hailing Lebanon as a shining beacon of his Administration's "democracy agenda" for the Middle East. Close to 1 million Lebanese had flooded into Beirut to demand that Syria pull its troops out of Lebanon and end its 29-year domination of the country. The U.S. State Department coined the protests the Cedar Revolution, a more folksy title than the Lebanese term, Independence Intifadeh, which smacked of radicalism. But with six ministers having resigned since Nov. 11, sectarian tensions rising and government officials fearing for their lives, the vision of a new Lebanon is dimming fast—and with it, the Administration's bid to build a positive legacy in the Middle East beyond the wreckage of Iraq.

There are worrying signs, in fact, that Lebanon may be closer to a total meltdown than at any time since the 1975-90 civil war. An Arab diplomat told Time that General Michael Suleiman, the commander in chief of the Lebanese Army, recently admitted that his troops would be able to contain a series of demonstrations "for only a few weeks." If Hizballah organizes protests around the country similar to those in Beirut last week, "We will not be able to cope," Suleiman reportedly said. His concern was that because many of his troops are Shi'ite, they would refuse to act against their brethren within Hizballah.

The nightmare scenario is that Hizballah's show of strength could provoke a backlash against its mostly Shi'ite supporters by Lebanon's Sunni Muslim, Christian and Druze communities. If that happens, most Lebanese believe the situation could quickly escalate into all-out civil war. As a river of pro-Hizballah demonstrators flowed toward Siniora's besieged compound last week, poultry seller Ahmad Sahd, 65, wept. "These youngsters didn't live through the civil war. I did. And it looks like it's starting again." So why is the Cedar Revolution crashing down? Part of the answer rests outside Lebanon's borders. During the summer's war with Israel, Hizballah relied heavily on the Syrians for logistic, military and financial support. According to Israeli officials, Western diplomats in Beirut and Arab sources, Damascus acted as a conduit for Iranian weapons to reach Hizballah, allowing the group to fight the Israelis to a standstill.

Now it is payback time. Lebanese officials, along with Israeli military sources and Western diplomats, say that while Syrian President Bashar Assad may be willing to help pull the Bush Administration out of the Iraqi quicksand, he hopes to exact concessions that would allow him to treat Lebanon, where the Syrian regime has vast financial interests, as his private turf. And according to these same sources, he is unnerved by a U.N.-sponsored inquiry that implicates top Syrian officials in the February 2005 car bombing that killed former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri and 22 others. Assad is hoping that the international probe will peter out. Indictments issued by a U.N.-sponsored court against members of the Syrian leadership could critically weaken the Damascus regime and lead to U.N. sanctions against Assad's clique. Hizballah pulled its six ministers out of the 24-seat Cabinet rather than vote to support an international court to prosecute the Hariri case, and the assassination of Gemayel, the scion of a powerful Christian family and a fervent anti-Syrian, was seen as further warning to Siniora. His Cabinet voted anyway to recommend an international tribunal into the Hariri killing, pushing Hizballah into the streets last week.

Hizballah also accuses Siniora's ministers of secretly siding with Israel and the U.S. by failing to provide backup during the July-August war with Israel. With its massive street demonstrations, Hizballah hopes to intimidate the country's other parties into giving it more than the six Cabinet seats it had held, enabling it to block any legislation seen as contrary to the interests of Hizballah and its backers in Damascus and Tehran.

Whether Hizballah succeeds depends on how long it can capitalize on the p.r. boost it gained from waging war with Israel. Among Lebanon's downtrodden Shi'ites, Hizballah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah now enjoys mythical status. The many faces of Nasrallah appear everywhere. At times he is portrayed as a jolly preacher, a wise scholar or a glowering warrior with his turban like a black storm cloud overhead. When a starstruck woman requested the abaya, or robe, that he wore during the war, Nasrallah obliged, and since then TV crews have been following the woman across Lebanon as she displays this now holy garment for other faithful fans.

And yet even in Lebanon, Nasrallah isn't universally adored. Many Lebanese consider it a heroic but colossal blunder on Nasrallah's part to have provoked the Israelis by having his fighters stage a cross-border raid in July and kidnap two Israeli soldiers. War damage in Lebanon is assessed at $3.6 billion. More than 1,200 Lebanese died, and 3,700 were wounded. Another 974,184 were left homeless. Says parliamentarian Saad Hariri, son of the slain former Prime Minister: "When it starts raining and getting cold, people will realize what a huge mistake it was for Hizballah to start this war." What's more, the olive groves and hills of southern Lebanon are sown with more than 1 million bomblets from Israeli cluster bombs, say U.N. experts, making it hazardous if not lethal to wander into these areas.

Hizballah was badly swatted by the Israelis too. The Israeli military says it has the names of over 550 Hizballah fighters who were killed, including 400 belonging to the Iranian-trained elite special forces unit, the Nasr Brigade. In Lebanon, the thinking is that those numbers are probably inflated, that many of the dead were militants unaffiliated with Hizballah who grabbed a gun and joined the fighting. Whatever the body count, Hizballah has lost assets. As part of a cease-fire agreement, 10,000 U.N. peacekeepers and 15,000 Lebanese troops moved into southern Lebanon, long an exclusive preserve of Hizballah. As a result, Nasrallah's men lost possession of a number of strategic underground bunkers, complete with showers and dining halls, honeycombing the limestone hills for miles near the Israeli border. Many of its field commanders were killed in the fighting, and according to Lebanese and Israeli sources, Hizballah inquisitors are now weeding out and shooting suspected collaborators who helped the Israelis by pinpointing militia targets. And every Hizballah office in Beirut was sledge-hammered by Israeli warplanes. The rubble of concrete slabs, steel and scraps of clothing was scooped up by bulldozers into heaps; it has added a dozen large hills to the coastal landscape south of Beirut.

Hizballah's opponents say that as time passes, resentments toward Nasrallah are likely to build. That may be the main reason that Hizballah is again girding for war. The next round could be even uglier. While most of the other communities still have stockpiles of arms stashed away from the days of the civil war, Hizballah's force is stronger and better organized than its rivals, say Beirut-based diplomats. But the various players in Lebanon may find outside backers. The Christians could again find support from the Israelis; and the Saudis, who are alarmed at the growing Shi'ite influence in Lebanon through Hizballah, may find Sunni militias to bankroll. Sunni jihadists may also join the fray, turning Lebanon into a mini-Iraq. Lebanese intelligence recently broke up a ring of 200 Syrian-backed Islamists holed up in a Palestinian refugee camp who had a hit list of 36 Lebanese politicians.

Posters of Nasrallah, usually grinning, may crop up everywhere, but the cleric himself is still deep in hiding. During the summer's fighting, the Israelis made no secret that they were trying to assassinate him. Western diplomats in Beirut say they are trying to persuade the Israelis that killing the Hizballah boss is no longer a good idea. His murder could spark reprisals across the Middle East. Hizballah has ways of taking revenge. After Israelis targeted a previous Hizballah leader in 1992, the militia blew up the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires. Should Nasrallah be killed, Israeli missions today would be similarly at risk—as would U.S. interests around the world. But these sources say that the Israelis may be willing to court that danger if they have a chance to take out Nasrallah, whom they view as a particularly clever and dangerous enemy. The damage that Lebanon and the Middle East will face if another war breaks out could make the destruction caused by Hizballah and Israel last summer look like a brisk whirlwind by comparison.

—With reporting by Nicholas Blanford/Beirut, Aaron J. Klein/Biranit and Elaine Shannon/ Washington

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Pinochet undergoes emergency angioplasty


EDUARDO GALLARDO,

Associated Press Writer

Gen. Augusto Pinochet, the Chilean dictator whose regime was responsible for widespread killings and other abuses, suffered a heart attack Sunday and underwent an emergency angioplasty that his son said "virtually rescued him from death."

A spokesman for Pinochet said he received last rites, and a doctor treating him described the 91-year-old's heart attack as "life-threatening." A small group of Pinochet supporters, mainly women, arrived at the hospital, some holding portraits of the former ruler, who has been under house arrest and charged with human rights abuses.

Pinochet's younger son, Marco Antonio, said his father had been "virtually rescued from death" with the angioplasty, in which the doctors introduce a catheter to a patient's blocked artery and inflate a small balloon to enlarge it, thus restoring blood flow to the heart.

"We are now in the hands of God and of the doctors. My father is in very bad condition," Marco Antonio Pinochet said as he left the hospital.

Dr. Juan Ignacio Vergara, a member of the team attending Pinochet, said the angioplasty was successful, but that he remained in serious condition. The heart attack was "indeed life threatening," especially because of Pinochet's age.

Pinochet's spokesman, retired Gen. Guillermo Garin, said the former ruler was administered the last rites.

The former dictator, who ruled from 1973 until 1990, uses a pacemaker and was diagnosed with mild dementia caused by several strokes. He also suffers from diabetes and arthritis.

His failing health has helped him escape punishment for human rights abuses committed during his regime, with courts ruling his condition prevented from standing trial at least twice in recent years.

But last week, Pinochet was indicted and ordered to remain under house arrest for the execution of two bodyguards of Salvador Allende, the freely elected Marxist president who was toppled in the 1973 coup in which Pinochet took power.

The indictment came after Pinochet's 91st birthday on Nov. 25, which he marked by issuing a statement for the first time taking full political — though not explicitly legal — responsibility for abuses committed by his regime.

"Today, near the end of my days, I want to say that I harbor no rancor against anybody, that I love my fatherland above all and that I take political responsibility for everything that was done which had no other goal than making Chile greater and avoiding its disintegration," he said at the time.

The recent house arrest is the fifth such action taken against Pinochet on charges stemming from human rights violations during his dictatorship.

The indictment alleges kidnapping and homicide in connection with the deaths of two Allende bodyguards who were arrested the day of the coup, Sept. 11, 1973. Both were executed by firing squad four weeks later, the military regime announced at the time.

Pinochet faces two other indictments — another in connection to human rights abuses and one on tax charges.

According to an official report prepared by an independent commission appointed by the first civilian government after Pinochet's rule, 3,197 people were killed for political reasons during his regime and more than 1,000 of them "disappeared."

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5 years later, WTC mail keeps coming


MEGHAN BARR,

Associated Press Writer

It's the kind of holiday mail that might have been tossed aside, discarded like any other piece of junk mail: a special offer for a facial at a local spa.

Only the address on the letter no longer exists. And the woman the letter is addressed to died more than five years ago in the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.

Hundreds of pieces of mail destined for the former trade center still arrive every day at a post office facing ground zero — the relics of the unfinished lives of Sept. 11 victims.

Telephone bills, insurance statements, wine club announcements, college alumni newsletters, even government checks populate the bundles of mail. Each bears the ZIP code once reserved exclusively for the twin towers: 10048.

"I guess sooner or later they'll realize the towers aren't back up," said letter carrier Seprina Jones-Sims, who handles the trade center mail. "I don't know when."

Some of the nation's most recognizable companies and organizations, from retailers to research hospitals, are among those sending the mail. Much of it seems to result from businesses not updating their bulk mailing lists, said U.S. Postal Service spokeswoman Pat McGovern.

The postal service declined to identify the senders and recipients of the letters according to policy. Several companies formerly housed in the towers also declined comment.

The trade center mail meets varied fates once it arrives at the Church Street station.

A handful of companies pay for a service that forces the post office to hold the mail until a messenger picks it up. The rest of the mail travels various routes. Some will be returned to the sender, some will be forwarded to the company's current address and some will be sent to a Brooklyn recycling firm to be destroyed.

That the Postal Service is even forwarding mail from a nonexistent address five years later is rare. "Normally we'd only forward mail for a year, but we're making an exception here," McGovern said.

The trade center's mail used to travel from the Church Street post office and up through the towers. It would start on the ground tucked in the letter carrier's bag and continue up higher and higher — to the 68th floor, the 89th floor, the 104th floor.

The morning's mail never made it through the flames and smoke on Sept. 11, 2001. It stayed put with the letter carriers, who silently observed the chaos that unfurled outside the post office.

Flying debris blew out most of its windows. After a three-year restoration, its doors officially reopened in August 2004.

Rafael Feliciano delivered mail to floors 78 through 100 of the south tower for three years. He watched the tower collapse on television from a bar several blocks away with a co-worker.

"He turned to me and said, 'You just lost your route,'" Feliciano recalled. When the dust cleared, he spent weeks identifying office workers who came to pick up their mail, searching for familiar faces to see if they had survived.

Mail addressed to people who were killed was marked as deceased right away, he said. But it kept coming.

"It's been five years later. How many people don't know the towers are gone?" he said.

Jones, 39, took over the trade center mail after Feliciano — too shaken to enter tall buildings any longer — left his route to become a driver. She gets to work at 5 a.m. The mail is carefully divided among white plastic trays labeled by company name.

But the Church Street post office — built in 1935 and now on the National Register of Historic Places — is no longer the bustling hub it was when it stood just steps away from the city's tallest buildings.

Between 2001 and 2002, the total weekly volume dropped from 1.2 million pieces to just 485,000. It has risen slightly in the years since.

The neighborhood is slowly awakening, attracting more and more residents and businesses after the exodus that occurred five years ago. The post office's marble floors are newly polished and the building is brimming with employees. When they gaze out the long bay windows overlooking ground zero, they see nothing but blue sky.

"You start flashing back to that day," Feliciano said. "That's why I got off the routes. It's like a movie that plays over and over in your head."

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Today in history - Dec. 3

Today is Sunday, Dec. 3, the 337th day of 2006. There are 28 days left in the year.


Today's Highlight in History:


On Dec. 3, 1967, surgeons in Cape Town, South Africa, led by Dr. Christiaan Barnard performed the first human heart transplant on Louis Washkansky, who lived 18 days with the new heart.


On this date:


In 1818, Illinois was admitted as the 21st state.

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Tags: Washkansky | Gershwin | Barnard | Transplant | SURGEONS | Students | performed | lived | days | New York | LOUIS | India | Illinois | george | Dec | cincinnati | christiaan | cape | California | BHOPAL | Berkeley | Africa

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Today in history - Dec. 3


The Associated Press

Today is Sunday, Dec. 3, the 337th day of 2006. There are 28 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight in History:

On Dec. 3, 1967, surgeons in Cape Town, South Africa, led by Dr. Christiaan Barnard performed the first human heart transplant on Louis Washkansky, who lived 18 days with the new heart.

On this date:

In 1818, Illinois was admitted as the 21st state.

In 1828, Andrew Jackson was elected president of the United States by the Electoral College.

In 1925, "Concerto in F," by George Gershwin, had its world premiere at New York's Carnegie Hall, with Gershwin himself at the piano.

In 1947, the Tennessee Williams play "A Streetcar Named Desire" opened on Broadway.

In 1953, the musical "Kismet" opened on Broadway.

In 1960, the musical "Camelot" opened on Broadway.

In 1964, police arrested some 800 students at the University of California at Berkeley, one day after the students stormed the administration building and staged a massive sit-in.

In 1979, 11 people were killed in a crush of fans at Cincinnati's Riverfront Coliseum, where the British rock group The Who was performing.

In 1984, thousands of people died after a cloud of methyl isocyanate gas escaped from a pesticide plant operated by a Union Carbide subsidiary in Bhopal, India.

In 1991, radicals in Lebanon released American hostage Alann Steen, who'd been held captive nearly five years.

Ten years ago: Four people were killed in a subway bombing in southern Paris. The Justice Department barred 16 Japanese army veterans suspected of World War II atrocities from entering the United States. A judge in Hawaii ruled that the state had to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, prompting an appeal.

Five years ago: In the wake of bombings that killed 26 Israelis, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon declared war on terror. President Bush's homeland security chief, Tom Ridge, asked Americans to return to a high state of alert, citing threats of more terrorist attacks. Enron took steps to bolster its weak financial footing following its historic bankruptcy filing, arranging $1.5 billion in financing and slashing 4,000 jobs, or 20 percent of its work force.

One year ago: Economic officials from the world's richest countries resumed their pressure on China to adopt a more flexible exchange rate as they concluded a meeting in London. Insurgents killed 19 Iraqi soldiers in a coordinated ambush northeast of Baghdad. Retired Navy vice admiral Frederick L. "Dick" Ashworth, the weaponeer aboard the B-29 that dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan, died in Phoenix at age 93.

Today's Birthdays: Country singer Ferlin Husky is 81. Singer Andy Williams is 79. Movie director Jean-Luc Godard is 76. Singer Jaye P. Morgan is 75. Actress Mary Alice is 65. Rock singer Ozzy Osbourne is 58. Actress Heather Menzies is 57. Country musician Paul Gregg (Restless Heart) is 52. Actor Steven Culp ("Desperate Housewives") is 51. Actress Daryl Hannah is 46. Actress Julianne Moore is 46. Actor Brendan Fraser is 38. Singer Montell Jordan is 38. Actor Royale Watkins is 37. Actor Bruno Campos is 33. Actress Holly Marie Combs is 33. Actress Lauren Roman is 31. Actress Anna Chlumsky is 26. Actor Brian Bonsall is 25. Actor Michael Angarano is 19.

Thought for Today: "The well of Providence is deep. It's the buckets we bring to it that are small." — Mary Webb, Scottish religious leader (c.1881-1927).

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