US embassy cable - 05BEIRUT2153

C O N F I D E N T I A L  BEIRUT 002153 
 
 
NSC FOR ABRAMS/DANIN/POUNDS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/30/2020 
TAGS: PREL, KDEM, PTER, LE, SY 
SUBJECT: THE NEW AND IMPROVED NABIH BERRI SAYS THE RIGHT 
THING ON REFORM, NEED FOR QUIET ALONG BLUE LINE 
 
REF: BEIRUT 2104 
 
Classified By: Jeffrey Feltman, Ambassador, per 1.4 (b) and (d). 
 
SUMMARY 
------- 
 
1.  (C)  Newly re-elected Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, 
opening a 6/30 meeting with the Ambassador, growled about 
alleged USG attempts to "veto" his candidacy.  But after this 
initial scratchy start, Berri turned uncharacteristically 
friendly and polemics-free, saying he wanted to set aside 
politics to talk realities:  Lebanon must have reform. 
Lebanon will need assistance in that reform.  U.S. and 
international community support, even conditional, is needed 
and welcome.  Responding to the Ambassador's questions about 
the seriousness of his new-found advocacy of reform, Berri 
said (twice), "just watch me," vowing that Parliament will be 
active in keeping the government publicly accountable.  On 
cabinet formation, Berri said that the Hizballah-Amal bloc 
"should" get six seats of a 24-member cabinet but would 
accept five only.  Claiming that he wanted to schedule the 
cabinet's vote of confidence "immediately," he worried that 
President Lahoud would delay cabinet approval.  Berri 
rejected the Ambassador's complaints about his references to 
U.S. encouragement of Palestinian settlement in Lebanon, and 
he highlighted the fact that he had not explicitly criticized 
UNSCR 1559 in his Parliamentary address.  Berri thought that 
UNSCR 1559 implementation should start with action against 
Palestinian militants, not Hizballah.  On actions in the 
south, Berri, while repeating the familiar (and tiresome) 
Lebanese claims to Sheba'a Farms, agreed that Hizballah 
should not provoke the situation.  He promised to use his 
influence in an attempt to calm the blue line.  End summary. 
 
"WHY DID YOU WANT TO VETO ME?" 
------------------------------ 
 
2.  (C)  In a 6/30 meeting with the Ambassador, newly elected 
Parliament Speaker Berri initially went into his 
characteristic attack mode:  why had the USG attempted to 
veto his candidacy?  It must be so, Berri said, since the 
Lebanese press has reported it.  Expressing astonishment that 
Berri believed what he read in Lebanese papers, the 
Ambassador responded that the USG was supporting a process by 
which the Lebanese, not foreigners, choose their leaders. 
The USG hopes that the Lebanese will choose leaders who can 
produce the types of reforms the Lebanese people want and 
need, but it is not up to us to say who those leaders should 
be.  After some back-and-forth needling, Berri accepted the 
Ambassador's words by offering chocolates wrapped in a 
portrait of the Speaker himself (which can be removed and 
used as a sticker, allowing images of Berri's smiling face to 
be affixed conveniently to any surface).  "And you think I'm 
not sweet?" Berri cracked to the startled Ambassador. 
 
THE BORN-AGAIN REFORMER 
----------------------- 
 
3.  (C)  Berri said that he wanted to put politics aside and 
"not repeat my positions and you repeat your positions." 
Claiming to speak candidly, he said that he was serious in 
his Parliamentary address when he emphasized the need for 
reform (reftel).  He vowed to oversee an activist Parliament 
that holds regular committee and full plenary sessions on 
government performance.  The Parliament must be the "public 
watchdog," Berri said, emphasizing public accountability. 
The Ambassador noted that Berri was describing a far 
different Parliament than the one he had overseen before, and 
he asked Berri about the general skepticism that greeted 
Berri's public references to reform.  "Just watch me," Berri 
said, vowing to push through reform.  Lebanon very much needs 
U.S. and international support for its reform program.  The 
Ambassador cautioned Berri that he should expect that, given 
the experience of Paris II, Lebanon should expect that any 
international support will be conditional on the 
implementation of reforms.  Of course, Berri responded, "and 
we will do it." 
 
4.  (C)  The Ambassador asked Berri why he was suddenly a 
convert to the cause of reforms.  "I have always been with 
reforms!" Berri, in a facts-be-damned moment, insisted. 
Before, there was no reason to try to push for reform, given 
the fights between Prime Minister Hariri and President Lahoud 
and the intervention of the Syrians.  Nothing as possible. 
But now, the Syrian withdrawal makes everything possible. 
The Syrians can no longer block change.  "People say I'm 
pro-Syrian," Berri complained.  "But who wasn't?  We had to 
be!"  Berri said that he will "never" be "anti-Syrian."  He 
said that Lebanon cannot be ruled from Syria, but, likewise, 
Lebanon cannot be ruled as an enemy of Syria.  The Ambassador 
said that the USG looked forward to working with genuine 
reformers, but he cautioned that we will base on our 
assessments on actual reform.  "I said, just watch me," Berri 
said.  He noted that he would be giving his "first" interview 
on Lebanese television in more than a decade later that 
evening, "and you'll hear me talk about reform." 
 
QUICK CABINET FORMATION NEEDED, 
WITH FIVE SEATS TO AMAL-HIZBALLAH 
--------------------------------- 
 
5.  (C)  The Ambassador asked Berri about the cabinet 
formation.  Berri said that he expected Fouad Siniora would 
be tapped by mid-afternoon as the Prime Minister-designate. 
He said that he strongly supported quick government formation 
-- "we need this immediately!" -- and would be willing to 
call Parliament into session as early as Saturday (7/2) for a 
vote of confidence, if Siniora could be ready by that time. 
"We can't afford a vacuum," Berri said (without a hint of 
shame that he had closed down Parliament since February, 
single-handedly creating a legislative vacuum).  But he did 
not think the cabinet formation would move that quickly.  He 
expected there to be a "war of the 'thirds,'" with President 
Lahoud "fighting for the right" to name at least one-third of 
the cabinet members.  Berri said that he would not insist on 
the traditional Speaker's "one-third."  Instead, he would use 
the ratio of Hizballah-Amal's electoral strength of 33 seats 
(out of 128) in the Parliament.  This means that Hizballah 
and Amal should have one-quarter of the cabinet seats, or 6 
in a 24-member cabinet.  But, to give Sa'ad Hariri more 
flexibility, Hizballah and Amal together will ask for only 
five seats, Berri said.  Michel Aoun, with 21 MPs (including 
his allies), should have three or four seats.  The Ambassador 
noted that the Speaker was assuming that Siniora intended to 
form a national unity govenrment.  What would the Speaker do 
if Siniora attempted to form a majority cabinet with only his 
electoral allies?  Berri said that Siniora was not thinking 
about this option and that Lebanon was not "ready" for this, 
"not yet."  Berri said that he also advocated having a 
cabinet of "professionals," not MPs, but he conceded that 
Siniora was likely to include at least some MPs. 
 
U.S. SUPPORT FOR PALESTINIAN "IMPLANTATION," 
AND UNSCR 1559 -- NOT-SO-SUBTLE NUANCES 
------------------------------------------- 
 
6.  (C)  Turning back to Berri's speech before the Parliament 
(reftel), the Ambassador said that the U.S. was weary and 
annoyed at having to deny repeatedly the canard that U.S. 
policy is aimed at settling the Palestinian refugees 
permanently in Lebanon.  Berri knows very well that this is 
not the case, the Ambassador said, and we were not happy to 
hear him raise this allegation again.  "I never said that it 
was U.S. policy!" Berri responded.  "You didn't listen to 
me!"  Producing a copy of his speech, Berri repeated the 
paragraph in question, which warned of waves from the U.S. 
Congress and European parliaments promoting this idea.  Berri 
said that we could not "deny" that U.S. Congressional 
representatives, "including that one last summer" (i.e., 
Christopher Shays), had said that the GOL should give the 
Palestinians citizenship.  Berri said that his worry was that 
congressional statements could easily become U.S. policy, so 
he needed to issue a warning loudly and clearly.  Asking 
Berri to drop all public discussions of the fictitious U.S. 
support for Palestinian implantation, the Ambassador said 
that he doubted many people understood the separation of 
powers in the U.S. Government as well as Berri seemed to. 
 
7.  (C)  Berri also urged the Ambassador to review his speech 
to recognize that there was "no reference at all" to UNSCR 
1559.  Berri said that "you know" he rejects UNSCR 1559. 
But, out of deference to Lebanon's traditional respect to 
international law, he did not explicitly complain about UNSCR 
1559.  The Ambassador responded that his implied words were 
clear enough and not welcomed.  Sounding more curious than 
argumentative, Berri asked the Ambassador how the USG would 
"force" the implementation of UNSCR 1559, when sending the 
Lebanese Armed Forces against Hizballah would surely 
destabilize the country.  The Ambassador responded that the 
international community did not want to see Lebanon 
destabilized.  Yet we did not want the fear of 
destabilization to lead to paralysis when it comes to UNSCR 
1559.  Ideally, rather than imposing an external solution, we 
would like to support and encourage a serious Lebanese 
process aimed at implementing UNSCR 1559.  But the ongoing 
clashes in the Sheba'a Farms area demonstrates the importance 
of UNSCR 1559 implementation.  Berri mused that "maybe we can 
start with" taking some kind of action against Ahmed Jibril's 
PFLP-GC. 
 
SHEBA'A CLASHES:  BERRI PROMISES 
TO TRY TO HELP CALM SITUATION 
-------------------------------- 
 
8.  (C)  Berri then asked the Ambassador what he knew about 
the clashes in the Sheba'a Farms area.  While emphasizing 
that he was still working from initial reports, the 
Ambassador noted that it seemed as though the clashes began 
with an infiltration by Hizballah members south of the Blue 
Line.  Berri did not dispute this interpretation and said 
that he generally "trusted" UNIFIL's chronology and analysis 
more than either Israel's or Hizballah's.  Berri and the 
Ambassador then sketched out maps to illustrate what each 
thought had happened at Sheba'a.  Berri said that, while he 
believed firmly that Sheba'a Farms belongs to Lebanon, he was 
opposed to any provocations that could expose Lebanon to 
Israeli retaliation.  Presented with several theories by the 
Ambassador about what Hizballah's motives were, Berri said, 
in seeming candor, that he did not know exactly why Hizballah 
would decide to move now, "but there might be many reasons." 
In any case Berri agreed that it was important to calm the 
area, and he promised to use what influence he has in getting 
Hizballah to observe a cease fire.  Asked by the Ambassador 
about the impact of Iranian elections on Hizballah, Berri 
commented that Hizballah members "are celebrating."  He 
promised to "talk about Iran" with the Ambassador at a later 
date. 
 
9.  (C)  The Ambassador asked Berri why Hizballah Secretary 
General Nasrallah was now trying to reopen the 1923 borders 
by making reference to the "seven villages" lost to Palestine 
when the French and British Mandate authorities charted 
Lebanon's southern border.  Berri described the "seven 
villages" argument as a "joke" that the "Lebanese won't 
accept."  The Ambassador pointed out that Walid Jumblatt and 
even Berri himself had echoed Nasrallah's claim to the "seven 
villages."  Berri went into a long monologue about land 
ownership in 1923 to argue that, indeed, the "seven villages" 
were Lebanese.  But Berri said that he was opposed to 
re-opening 1923 borders. 
 
COMMENT 
------- 
 
10.  (C)  While we have no illusions about his sincerity, the 
new and improved Nabih Berri is certainly  a more tolerable 
interlocutor than the previous, unpleasantly polemical model. 
 Let us hope that Berri was shocked into more constructive 
positions by the quantity and ferocity of publicly stated 
opposition to his return as Speaker.  His talk of public 
accountability was unexpected music to our ears.  He'll 
probably continue to sing a pleasant reform tune for some 
time, but we -- and the Lebanese people -- will remain 
skeptical until we see improved performance in the Parliament 
and in his own behavior.  We suspect, however, that he will 
continue to use objectionable language about Hizballah and 
the Blue Line, and we are bracing ourselves for his 
television appearance tonight. 
 
 
FELTMAN