LEBANON: JUMBLATT SAYS EVERYTHING REVOLVES AROUND

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 03 BEIRUT 002975

SIPDIS

SIPDIS
NOFORN

STATE NEA/ELA FOR ABERCROMBIE-WINSTANLEY/WILLIAMS/DONICK
NSC FOR ABRAMS/DORAN/MARCHESE/HARDING

E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/13/2026
TAGS: PREL PTER LE
SUBJECT: LEBANON: JUMBLATT SAYS EVERYTHING REVOLVES AROUND
TRIBUNAL

Classified By: Jeffrey D. Feltman, Ambassador. Reason 1.4 (b) and (d).

SUMMARY
--------------


1. (S/NF) During a 9/13 meeting with Ambassador and poloff
in the library of his Mukhtara home, Druze leader Walid
Jumblatt said the next three months will be critical for
Lebanon and that the Hariri tribunal will be the driving
concern. Claiming that last week's attempted assassination
of ISF Lieutenant Colonel Samir Shehate is a sign of things
to come, Jumblatt suggested that the March 14 movement will
have a delicate balancing act between courting Nabih Berri
and encouraging independent Shi'a while not provoking
Hizballah into an armed internal conflict. Jumblatt will
travel on 9/14 to Italy where he will meet with FM D'Alema,
and plans to go next week to Saudi Arabia, which he claims
has stepped up its funding to March 14-allied institutions in
Lebanon (beyond the $500 million already granted for
reconstruction). END SUMMARY.

KEEP BERRI CLOSE TO COUNTERACT HIZBALLAH
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2. (S/NF) Discussing Hassan Nasrallah's belligerent 9/12
al-Jazeera interview, Jumblatt remarked that Nasrallah has
lost his "serenity" and is now using "insulting words" to
describe the Siniora government. Partially, he is responding
to the Siniora visit to Saudi Arabia and Tony Blair's visit
to Lebanon, which were both viewed as moves to counter
Hizballah. Jumblatt sees a deeper reason; he believes that
Hizballah, ordered by Syria and supported by Aounists and
others, aims to alter or bring down the Siniora government
before it has a chance to approve the statute to establish
the Hariri tribunal. The Syrians are scared of the tribunal
"more than anything else", claimed Jumblatt, and "will do
anything" to either change the composition of the current
March 14-dominated Cabinet or cause it to collapse. Jumblatt
even believes Hizballah would turn its weapons on other
Lebanese, "if ordered to do so."


3. (S/NF) Thus, while Nasrallah adopted a more threatening
tone towards the Siniora government in his al-Jazeera
interview, at the same time he suggested a seemingly benign
compromise of simply adding some Aounist ministers to the
current Cabinet. However, remarked Jumblatt, if this were to
happen, it would give the "anti-March 14" ministers (for lack
of a better term) a blocking minority in the Cabinet, thereby
allowing them to potentially kill the tribunal. (Note.
According to the Constitution, a blocking minority requires
over one-third of Cabinet ministers. In the current Cabinet
of twenty-four ministers, there are eight who are not with
March 14, not enough to block any legislation. However, with
the addition of just one "anti-March 14" minister, there
would be enough for a blocking minority. End Note.)


4. (S/NF) Jumblatt said that -- in a typically complex
Levantine chain of transmission -- Nabih Berri told Druze
minister Ghazi Aridi that Bashar Asad had asked Hizballah to
resign from the Siniora government if necessary. Given this
threat of a Hizballah walk-out, Jumblatt summed up his
strategy for keeping Shi'a representation in the Siniora
government: "Bribe Berri. There's no other way." While
Jumblatt acknowledges that Saad Hariri's initiative to
cultivate Shi'a contacts and encourage opposition voices such
as the Mufti of Tyre Sheikh Ali al-Amin will help counteract
Hizballah in the long-run, in the immediate term the key
figure remains Berri, with his three Cabinet ministers.


5. (S/NF) While Berri insists he supports the tribunal,
according to Jumblatt, he has also complained that
reconstruction money is not being channelled through his
Council for the South. Jumblatt suggested that this should
be remedied. "Do not let Nabih be isolated," he warned.
Jumblatt also suggests that March 14 not go on the
"offensive" against Hizballah but instead call for resuming
the National Dialogue as a way to avoid having a defensive
Hizballah lash out violently. Jumblatt quipped that

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Nasrallah himself not show up at the National Dialogue venue,
since "we are not all keen to become martyrs with him."

TROUBLE UP NORTH?
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6. (S/NF) Jumblatt said that there are ominous signs that
trouble is brewing, especially in northern Lebanon, adding
that, "we have to expect problems in the next couple of
months." Word had reached him that a convoy of arms had been
spotted moving from Homs in Syria to a Sunni fundamentalist
group in Seer ad-Dinneyeh in northern Lebanon. Jumblatt
informed the Ambassador that this group is led by the "son of
Said Sha'aban, the former Amir at-Tawheed (Leader of
Monotheism)," and is funded by Iran. Jumblatt is also
worried by a recent query from the Russian Ambassador to
Lebanon about whether he knew anything about "underground
tunnels connecting Lebanon to Syria" near Akkar in northern
Lebanon. This was the first Jumblatt had heard of such
rumored tunnels, but he found it significant that Ambassador
Boukin would mention the possibility.

SYRIAN CONTACTS
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7. (S/NF) The Ambassador asked if Jumblatt is maintaining
his contact with exiled former Syrian Ba'ath party luminaries
Abdel Halim Khaddam and Hikmet Shihabi. According to
Jumblatt, Khaddam has a "message" to pass to him, which an
emissary will collect from Paris early next week, while
Shihabi is planning to return from Paris to Los Angeles in
two weeks or so. Jumblatt said that the SARG -- specifically
Asif Shawkat -- had tried to entice Shihabi back to Syria,
but that Shihabi, seeing nothing for himself in Syria,
decided, after flirting with the idea, to reject the offer.


8. (S/NF) In a poignant aside, Jumblatt said that Shihabi
had recently informed him that the man responsible for
ordering the assassination of Walid's father Kamal Joumblatt
in 1977 was in fact presidential younger brother Rifa'at
al-Asad, and not Mohammed al-Khawry (NFI) as Walid had
supposed. Jumblatt said his father was killed for
questioning the Alawite minority's right to govern Syria.
"That's all it takes," noted Joumblatt drily, ticking off a
number of notable Arabs targeted over the years for
committing the same crime of mentioning minority/Alawite
rule. Even journalists Samir Kassir (murdered 6/2/05) and
May Chidiac (hideously maimed in 9/25/05 car bomb attack) had
offered analysis about Alawite rule over a Sunni majority,
Jumblatt claimed.

THE EUROPEANS
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9. (S/NF) Dubbing it "the conspiracy at the Serail",
Jumblatt said that he joined Siniora and Hariri for an
exclusive lunch -- Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea was
furious at not being invited, according to Jumblatt -- with
Tony Blair at the Grand Serail on September 11. The Lebanese
primarily pushed Blair for additional security support,
saying the GOL needs a credible deterrent against Hizballah.
Blair wanted assurances though that weapons and equipment
wouldn't end up in the wrong hands. "I responded to him that
they aren't all Shi'a in the army," Jumblatt told the
Ambassador (Comment. We hope they gave clearer assurances
than that. As we have noted in other messages, LAF control
over equipment provided to them has been traditionally quite
good. End Comment.)


10. (S/NF) Jumblatt said that he had met with fellow
socialists, including Segolene Royale, during an
international party conference in La Rochelle in late August.
While Royale had been uninformed on Middle East issues, she
seems a quick study to Jumblatt. He suspects a socialist
administration in France would want to support the Israeli
Labor party as much as possible, and that could possibly
include engaging with Damascus. Jumblatt said that he has
warned Royale to "be careful with the Asad mafioso", though

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he encouraged engagement with Iran.

COMMENT
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11. (S/NF) This was a worrying meeting with Jumblatt.
Given the shrill calls from Aoun and Nasrallah for the
Siniora government to resign in favor of a national unity
government, the increasing rumors of illicit arms shipments
to groups arrayed against March 14, and word of a
post-Ramadan Aounist civil disobedience campaign, we feel
that the tribunal statute needs to be brought before the
Lebanese Cabinet as soon as possible before the pressure
builds any further. While the Secretariat will probably want
to wait until after the Brammertz report release in late
September, we propose UNSYG Annan forward the statute to the
Security Council immediately following that for (hopefully)
rapid Council approval. In the interim, any differences
between Council members regarding the statute will need to be
ironed out. Jumblatt clarly linked the escalated rhetoric to
Syrian fears on the tribunal, but we wonder whether those
fears -- and thus the rhetoric -- will be reduced after the
next Brammertz report, if (as we have been led to believe)
there will be nothing sensational in the report.
FELTMAN