LEBANON: MICHEL "THE COOK" MURR HAS RECIPES FOR

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 BEIRUT 000043 SIPDIS SIPDIS NSC FOR ABRAMS/DORAN/MARCHESE/HARDING STATE FOR NEA/ELA, NEA/FO:ATACHCO E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/08/2017 TAGS: PGOV PREL PTER LE SUBJECT: LEBANON: MICHEL "THE COOK" MURR HAS RECIPES FOR METN SEAT, CABINET, AND TRIBUNAL Classified By: Jeffrey D. Feltman, Ambassador. Reason: 1.4 (d) SUMMARY -------------- ¶1. (C) Veteran politician, MP and Michel Aoun ally Michel Murr is working on a solution to the Metn by-election controversy that would bypass President Lahoud and install Amine Gemayel in the parliamentary seat left vacant by the assassination of his son. Murr also has a formula for the resolution of the March 8/March 14 dispute over the cabinet expansion, although it is unclear that many observers in or out of Lebanon would agree with his constitutional interpretations or his math. Justice Minister Charles Rizk is corrupt and untrustworthy according to Murr and would have no part in a Murr-designed cabinet. Opposition leaders, while not opposing the Hariri tribunal in principle, have every right to resent the government's handling of its establishment, and may hold out against it until they obtain the political benefits they seek. Finally, Murr's theory about the assassination attempt on his son Elias contradicts his son's own belief -- and exonerates the Syrians. End Summary. ¶2. (SBU) Ambassador called on veteran politician Michel Murr -- Orthodox MP from the Metn, ally of Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) leader Michel Aoun, former Interior Minister, and father of current Defense Minister Elias Murr -- at his Rabieh home January 8. Polchief and polstaff accompanied. METN BY-ELECTION -------------- ¶3. (C) Murr was most eager to discuss his initiative to solve the looming crisis over the proposed Metn by-election to fill the Chamber of Deputies seat left vacant by the assassination of Minister of Industry Pierre Gemayel. Murr is mediating between Gemayel's father, former head of state Amine Gemayel, and Michel Aoun to avert a showdown in the Metn after President Lahoud refused to sign a decree calling for a by-election. Murr is likely to recommend that Amine Gemayel fill the vacated seat of his assassinated son without contest, on the condition that Gemayel run as the Kataeb candidate and not represent himself as a member of the March 14 coalition. Murr plans to hold a dinner at his residence to try to reconcile Aoun and Gemayel within 10 days, and both have tentatively agreed to attend. ¶4. (C) Murr supports Amine Gemayel, he told us, so long as Gemayel is running (a) unopposed and (b) without association with March 14. He reviewed the election probabilities with Aoun and stressed to him that there is no reason for an election battle in the heavily Christian area. (Murr said the empty Metn produces 90,000 Christian votes as opposed to 1000 Shia, 1000 Druze and 600 Sunni votes.) Murr expects Aoun to cooperate. On the other hand, should Gemayel give Murr and Aoun cause to oppose him, Gemayel should know that his election battle will be a hard one. Murr refused to comment on rumors that former Ambassador to Washington Abdallah Bouhabib might stand for the seat with support from Michel Aoun and the Armenian Tashnaq party. ¶5. (C) When asked how he could count on the holding of a by-election when President Lahoud had refused to sign the decree authorizing it, Murr had no lack of confidence. Although eager to show himself a constitutional scholar (he produced his copy of the constitution later in our talk and made repeated references to several articles to support his points),the constitutional requirement to have the President authorize by-elections did not pose an impediment in his view. Indeed, because the constitution calls for a by-election within 60 days of a seat being made vacant, Murr argued, the government can refer the decision to the State Consultative Council for review and decision in the event Lahoud fails to act. Another option, as long as the election is unopposed, is to hold it under the authority of the Interior Minister. Finally, Murr suggested, the government can simply hold an election and seek retroactive approval from the president -- whether Lahoud or his successor. CABINET EXPANSION -------------- BEIRUT 00000043 002 OF 003 ¶6. (C) Murr continues to push his proposal for a cabinet formula to solve the political crisis, which he first put forward in December alongside the proposals of Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa and Chamber of Deputies Speaker SIPDIS Nabih Berri. Under Murr's formula, the cabinet would grow to 26 members, and nine of them would belong to the opposition -- the five current/resigned Shia ministers plus four ministers nominated by Aoun, to include Beqaa MP Ily Skaff, a Tashnaq MP, and two FPM members. Proud of his long record of assembling successful Lebanese governing coalitions, Murr informed us that he calls himself "the Cook" among Lebanon's politicians. ¶7. (C) When the Ambassador objected that the nine ministers would give the opposition a minority large enough ("more than one-third" under the constitution) to block decisions or force the cabinet's resignation at any moment, Murr argued that nine is not "more than one-third" of 26, for some reason relating to the indivisibility of an individual minister. Twenty minutes of arguing this point and consulting Murr's copy of the constitution could convince neither "the Cook" nor us of the other's point of view. RIZK -------------- ¶8. (C) One casualty of a Murr-designed cabinet reshuffle, in his ideal outcome and that of President Lahoud, would be Justice Minister and champion of the international tribunal Charles Rizk. The cardinal sin of Rizk (who denied to the Ambassador a few days ago a current rumor circulating in Beirut that he is of Alawite descent on his father's side) was to "betray" President Lahoud by turning against Lahoud's pro-Syrian policies after he nominated Rizk for the ministerial post in mid-2005. When the Ambassador asked Murr whether it is unacceptable to change one's mind or policies after achieving office, Murr replied that Rizk bears a diplomatic passport proclaiming him a "personal representative of President Lahoud." (Murr did not mention that the other cabinet members, including those who barely acknowledge Lahoud's existence, bear the same type of passport.) ¶9. (C) Murr added, if Rizk is willing to betray Lahoud he would be willing to betray March 14 as well. Furthermore, Murr alleged, Rizk was paid half a million dollars to change sides, and he is the biggest "merchant" ("tajjir") in the government today. (Comment: While many in Lebanon denounce Rizk's about-face on the principle that it showed a lack of loyalty, there are less principled and more likely explanations for the attacks on Rizk. Not only is Rizk the champion of the tribunal, but his star is rising fast as a possible presidential contender. The corruption rumor -- including the further detail that Saad Hariri put Rizk on the payroll -- also seems to have started at the same time and circulated through the same people as the Alawite-father allegation. End Comment.) "THERE'S NO PROBLEM WITH THE TRIBUNAL" -------------- ¶10. (C) The Ambassador noted that the pro-Syrian opposition continues to stress the need to reshuffle or expand the cabinet to ensure decisions are taken by consensus, but that all of the more than four thousand decisions taken by the cabinet have been by consensus, with only two exceptions. Those two exceptions were both -- on December 12, 2005 and November 11, 2006 -- concerning the Hariri tribunal. The only reasonable conclusion is that the opposition has some kind of problem with the tribunal. If it could be revealed and discussed, a solution could surely be found, the tribunal approved, and life in Lebanon could go on. ¶11. (C) Murr replied, as he would repeat several times in the conversation (and as many opposition figures repeat, almost as a mantra),"There is no problem with the tribunal." Murr assured the Ambassador that no party in Lebanon's political dispute opposes the tribunal, and claimed that following a political settlement and a review of the tribunal documents by a six-member judicial committee, Speaker Berri and Hizballah will pass the tribunal without delay. Murr hinted, BEIRUT 00000043 003 OF 003 though, that the tribunal's provision making leaders responsible for the actions of their subordinates could cause problems. In addition some opposition figures are afraid the court could be used for political purposes, issuing unwarranted summons to harass or intimidate Hariri's opponents. The Ambassador noted to Murr that while the UN International Independent Investigation Commission (UNIIIC) enjoys a relatively broad mandate, the court established under the tribunal agreement will be strictly bound by international law and will therefore incorporate even greater protection for the rights of the innocent. ¶12. (C) The process had also caused problems, Murr alleged. The Ambassador noted that Speaker Berri received the tribunal documents officially on November 10 and after two months had neither acted on them nor (as he claims) even reviewed them. Murr charged that he and Berri had asked the Prime Minister for the documents November 9 and that the PM had not released the documents until after he had shared them with UN officials. The total time lag was 24 hours, the Ambassador noted. ¶13. (C) When pressed to tell us what is the real problem with the tribunal, Murr once again asserted that "there is no problem with the tribunal" but hinted that "Lebanon has many problems" and that passage of the tribunal should be part of a "package deal." The presidency, the cabinet, the parliament, the administration -- all branches of government are blocked, Murr pointed out. Demonstrators are in the streets. "With no government," he added, the Paris III donors conference January 25 will be a failure and will generate no more than a few million dollars. "Not billions -- millions" he specified. "With no government, no court; with no court, no government," he concluded. (Comment: Murr seemed to be hinting that the opposition views the tribunal as a bargaining chip. Despite their repeated assertions that "there is no problem with the tribunal" opposition leaders may be withholding their assent to the court until they receive the concessions they are seeking, including an expansion of the cabinet and of their powers. However, the timing of the two Shia walkouts -- almost one year apart -- suggests that there is something fundamentally unacceptable about the tribunal either to the Shia parties or to their Syrian allies. End Comment.) ATTACK ON ELIAS MURR -------------- ¶14. (C) Murr recalled several times during the talk that he had been the victim of a bombing attack in 1991, and the Ambassador asked who Murr believed responsible for the July 2005 car-bomb attack on his son, current Defense Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Elias Murr. "My theory is different from my son's" he said, and explained that he holds Sunni extremists, possibly from the East Biqaa town of Majdal Anjar, responsible. When in September 2004 the Internal Security Force (ISF, under control of Elias Murr's Interior Ministry) uncovered a (Syrian-financed) plot to recruit Sunni extremists for attacks against the Italian Embassy and other sites in Beirut in retaliation for Italy's participation in Operation Enduring Freedom, several suspects were arrested including Majdal Anjar native Ismail Khatib, who died in police custody. His funeral became an extremist rally against the Interior Ministry and spawned wide-ranging riots. Murr told us that he told his close friend, Syrian Intelligence Chief in Lebanon Rustom Ghazali, that he would hold Ghazali and Damascus responsible if the extremists harmed his son. The fact that no attack occurred until after the Syrians pulled out of Lebanon, in Murr's view, demonstrates that Ghazali kept his word and controlled the Sunni extremists until such time as they were out of the Syrians' control. FELTMAN