PEDERSEN BELIEVES HIZBALLAH SERIOUS ABOUT CHANGING

S E C R E T BEIRUT 003130

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

NSC FOR ABRAMS/DORAN/MARCHESE/HARDING

E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/27/2026
TAGS: PREL PTER KCRM LE SY
SUBJECT: PEDERSEN BELIEVES HIZBALLAH SERIOUS ABOUT CHANGING
LEBANESE CABINET


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


1. (S) In a one-on-one meeting with the Ambassador on 9/27,
UNSYG Annan's Personal Representative for Lebanon Geir
Pedersen said that he found a meeting he had the previous day
with his "usual Hizballah contact" (i.e., Wafiq Safa) both
"reassuring and alarming." The reassuring part, Pedersen
said, was what Safa said about south Lebanon: Hizballah will
not take any armed action or provoke UNIFIL or the Lebanese
Armed Forces. Nor will Hizballah smuggle arms into south
Lebanon. Answering the Ambassador's comments about
Hizballah's ability to exercise deniability by using
Palestinians instead, Pedersen said that he had put down a
marker with Safa on that very point. "I tild him that we know
that Hizballah has the best intelligence on the ground" and
that, therefore, Hizballah would be aware of any pending
Palestinian or al-Qaida strike. The Ambassador reminded
Pedersen that Safa had assured him that Hizballah would help
keep Summer 2006 a quiet one for Lebanon.


2. (S) More worrying, Pedersen said, were Safa's comments
on the GOL. Safa was clear. If the March 14 political
leadership does not use the month of Ramadan -- which Safa
assured Pedersen would remain quiet -- to move toward a
national unity cabinet, then Hizballah will use all means in
November to throw out the Siniora cabinet. Hizballah will
use resignations from the cabinet and the Parliament and
street action to throw out Siniora, just as street action by
pro-independence demonstrators forced Omar Karami to resign
the premiership on 2/28/05. On reforming the cabinet, Safa
told Pedersen explicitly that Hizballah insisted on a
coalition including Michel Aoun that would have the
constitutionally permitted "blocking minority" (more than a
third) of cabinet decisions.


3. (S) Safa did not link the need for a blocking minority
to the Hariri tribunal, but Pedersen did. He noted that Safa
expressed deep concern about the tribunal. He expressed
outrage that the draft statute worked out by UN/OLA and the
GOL cited "crimes against humanity" -- which provoked
Pedersen to tease Safa that Hizballah and the USG agreed --
and consternation that Bashar al-Asad's immunity could be
stripped. Pedersen said that he had the impression that
Safa, and Hizballah more generally, has now been given the
order to stop the tribunal. The Ambassador asked if Safa
seemed nervous about possible Hizballah involvement in the
Hariri murder, or if he was merely doing the Syrians'
bidding. Pedersen said that he could not tell.

COMMENT
--------------


4. (S) Officially, Siniora's cabinet now consists of 24
members (although Minister of Interior Hassan Saba, whose
February resignation was never formally accepted, remains
inactive). For the constitutional blocking minority,
Hizballah would need nine ministers (one third plus one
minister) on its side. Hizballah now can only count reliably
on the five Shia (three of which come from Nabih Berri's
Amal),plus Minister of Environment Yacoub Sarraf (allied
with President Emile Lahoud). If the cabinet expanded to 30
ministers -- the next available size, given the need to
maintain a complicated formula of confessional balance --
then Hizballah would need to have 11 ministers in all
reliably on its side. The March 14 majority in parliament
will not naturally give a vote of confidence to such a
cabinet, and Hizballah's apparent willingness to insist on
the blocking minority is, as Geir said, indeed worrying. If
the real issue is to stop the Hariri tribunal, then all
Hizballah must do in reality is make Lebanon ungovernable by
getting the Shia to resign all posts: the lack of a viable
cabinet or parliament would prevent the ratification of the
tribunal's statute.
FELTMAN