MR. TIM RUSSERT: Our issues this Sunday: Day 26 of the fighting in Lebanon and Israel. Is there any end in sight? Day 1,236 of the war in Iraq. Is the U.S. in the middle of a civil war? The Bush foreign policy challenged like never before. With us: the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice.

And this Tuesday, the biggest political primary election of the summer: the Democratic Party’s vice presidential candidate in 2000, Joe Lieberman, in the fight of his political life, taking on newcomer businessman Ned Lamont for the Democratic nomination for U.S. senator from Connecticut. Why is Lieberman vulnerable? With us: his longtime friend and supporter, and former special counsel to President Clinton, Lanny Davis. He’ll debate an early and vigorous supporter of Ned Lamont, the chair of Democracy for America, Jim Dean. Davis is for Lieberman, Dean is for Lamont. They’ll square off.

But first, the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, is in Crawford, Texas, with President Bush at his ranch.

Madame Secretary, good morning.

DR. CONDOLEEZZA RICE: Good morning, Tim.

MR. RUSSERT: As you well know, the French and the U.S. have put forward a resolution at the United Nations that is hopeful to bring about a full cessation of violence in the Middle East. But thus far Hezbollah and Lebanon have said no to the language, Israel has increased the intensity of its ground campaign. Is this resolution dead before it was passed?

DR. RICE: Tim, we haven’t even had the vote yet. We’re going to have further debate in the Security Council today, then we expect a vote on the resolution in the next day or so. And I think that once the international community has spoken, you will see that the parties will need to, to come into line. I’ve talked with both the Israelis and with the Lebanese just yesterday. This is a resolution that we think meets the needs of a set of principles that will allow the violence to abate so that they can begin to build toward a permanent cease-fire and, and to bring international forces in. But it’s a first step; it’s not the end of this process by any means.

MR. RUSSERT: Can there be any peace until the Hezbollah militia is destroyed?

DR. RICE: Well, the one thing that all Lebanese agree with—perhaps all but Hezbollah—is that it cannot have a situation again that obtained when Hezbollah crossed the blue line, kind of state-within-a-state, attacked Israel, abducted soldiers and really plunged the entire country into war without even the knowledge—let alone the consent—not even the knowledge of the Lebanese government.

And so if you talk to the Lebanese, they’re very focused on extending the authority of the Lebanese government throughout the country, of being able to bring Lebanese forces throughout the country, and making certain that any arms are going to be in the hands of just the Lebanese government, that there’re not going to be unauthorized or militia groups running throughout the country with a—with arms. And so the Lebanese themselves are dedicated to that. And these are obligations that they undertook, by the way, Tim, in the Taif Accords, all the way back in 1989, brokered by the Saudis, and also in Resolution 1559. So the Lebanese know what needs to be done here, and the international community now needs to help them do it.

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MR. RUSSERT: But you’re saying the Lebanese government will, will disarm and disband the, the Hezbollah militia?

DR. RICE: I’m saying that the Lebanese government, the Lebanese Army, with the assistance of the international community, wants to extend its authority, and make certain that arms are held by Lebanese security forces, and not by militias. Those are obligations that they’ve undertaken not just to the international community, but to the Lebanese people. And the ministers, by the way—two of, of whom are Hezbollah ministers—voted in a council of ministers meeting for the points that Prime Minister Siniora has put forward, and among those is to be able to carry out the Taif Accords, which require the disarming of militias.

But we need to concentrate on the first step here, and the first step is to have this violence abate, to have the political principles, the political elements that will allow an enduring cease-fire, and that’s what we’ve been working toward. We’ve been working toward it now since the G8 statement in St. Petersburg several weeks ago, during the trip that I made to the Middle East, where I engaged both parties on this, and now this is all going to be put forward in a Security Council resolution that puts the stamp of the international community on this set of elements that will put—that will provide a basis, so that nothing returns here to the status quo ante.

MR. RUSSERT: But Secretary Rice, on this very program last week, I asked the Lebanese envoy to the United Nations whether his government was willing to disband the Hezbollah militia. Here was his answer:

(Videotape, July 30, 2006):

MR. RUSSERT: Would you acknowledge the Lebanese Army is not strong enough to disband the Hezbollah militia?

MR. NOUHAD MAHMOUD: It’s not in our political agenda to disband of them militarily.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: “It’s not in our political agenda” to do that.

DR. RICE: Well, I would suggest that the envoy read the Taif Accords and Resolution 1559, both of which are obligations of the Lebanese government, and both of which, by the we—way, the Lebanese prime minister has affirmed over and over and over.

Now, clearly, the disarmament of Hezbollah isn’t going to take place before the cessation of hostilities or before a cease-fire. Nobody expects that. But what is expected is that the status quo ante in the south, where you had Hezbollah at the border, able to go into Israel without the consent of the Lebanese government, the situation in which you had heavy arms in the south, the situation in which there was no legitimate Lebanese authority in the south, that has to be changed, and that has to be changed quickly by the deployment not just of the Lebanese armed forces, but also the deployment of international forces to help them. There will have to be a disarmament of these militias in accordance with Lebanon’s obligations. And I think if you look at the statements of the prime minister and his council of ministers, which include Hezbollah ministers, they have reaffirmed those obligations.

MR. RUSSERT: But according to polling that Nick Confessore writes about in The New York Times today in Lebanon, 87 percent of the Lebanese support Hezbollah against Israel; 80 percent of the Lebanese Christians support Hezbollah over Israel. Has our policy of, in effect, giving Israel a green light to continue their military response, and for you to wait at least two weeks before going to the Middle East, has that backfired, and in fact made Lebanon as a country much more sympathetic to Hezbollah?

DR. RICE: Well, first of all, it is quite, quite understandable that there is a lot of emotion in Lebanon about what is going on there. But let’s recap what we’ve been doing over this three weeks. This is not a matter of green-lighting anyone. This is a matter of working within the international structures—first the G8, then with the parties, now in the U.N. Security Council, for a cessation of hostilities that will actually be based on something that will not permit a return to the status quo ante.

The fact of the matter is, Tim, that the history of the Middle East is littered with failed cease-fires. We understand that. We know, too, that the political condition that caused this problem in Lebanon, this terrible destruction in Lebanon, the, the most proximate cause was that Hezbollah launched an attack across an internationally recognized line, abducted soldiers, started rocketing Israel despite the fact that the Lebanese government did not know. That can’t happen again. You have got to create conditions on the ground in which you cannot have a return to the status quo ante. And I would just ask people to go and to look at what Prime Minister Siniora said when he was in Rome, which was we cannot have a return to the status quo ante. We’ve been building now, over the last three weeks, a set of arrangements, a set of political principles, that cannot, will not, allow that return to the status quo ante. We don’t want to be back here in six months or so, talking about another cease-fire caused by the same circumstances that caused this, this problem.

MR. RUSSERT: Do you believe Israel has shown the proper restraint?

CONTINUED

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