U.S. Undersecretary of State Calls for Israel-Hezbollah Cease-fire

GWEN IFILL: If you are an American who's living in Lebanon but not in Beirut and you don't have the money or the resources to get you to Beirut, will the American government come get you?

NICHOLAS BURNS: Well, what we're telling Americans in that situation, if they're in a dangerous area of Lebanon, if they have a computer, www.state.gov. They can contact us there. If they have a telephone, they can contact us through phone.

We have a limited ability, of course, given the situation, to send American personnel to distant parts of the country, just given the fact there's so much violence. But, obviously, if an American citizen feels stranded, we will find a way to help that American citizen. We're not going to leave anyone in an unprotected position.

GWEN IFILL: And there has been some question raised today about who pays for these evacuations. There's a United States senator tonight introducing a bill that would force the government to pay for these evacuations. What is the policy on that?

NICHOLAS BURNS: Well, first of all, Gwen, we're not going to ask people for money as they get on ships to leave in a state of some duress from Lebanon, but American government practice over the last several decades has been that, if there's an evacuation such as this, and there's a cruise ship or an airliner that takes people out, people commit to pay the commercial rate at some later date, not at the time.

A commercial airfare, in this case, from Beirut to Cyprus, that provision has been in practice for a long time. It can sometimes be waived. I can certainly understand the point of view of members of Congress that it seems a bit odd to be talking about money at a time like this.

And so, believe me, we're not going to be asking American citizens to pay before they leave. If people don't have the money, that's fine. We will put them on these ships because their safety is our first priority.

The fundamental responsibility of our government and our State Department to Americans overseas is to help them. And we're putting an enormous effort into helping American citizens in Lebanon. I think we've been effective, and you'll see a major effort in the next 24 hours to get several thousand people out.

GWEN IFILL: Mr. Undersecretary, on a related issue, Israel's ambassador to the United Nations said this afternoon on one of the cable networks that he is expecting Condoleezza Rice, Secretary Rice, to come to the United Nations on Thursday and then embark for the region on Friday. Can you confirm that for us?

NICHOLAS BURNS: I can't confirm those specific plans. Of course, you know that Secretary Rice is considering a trip to the region. Obviously, the United States, given our power and influence in the region, given all of the interests at stake that we have, we are going to be interested in being as helpful as we can to resolve this crisis.

So Secretary Rice is considering when the best time to make that trip would be, as she said today, but there's no question that what we've got to do now -- and there's a surprising degree of unanimity in the world about this -- Hezbollah has to act to give up the Israeli soldiers and to stop the shelling of one million Israelis in northern Israel.

The shelling of places like Haifa, and Tiberius, and Acre, places that haven't seen this kind of violence in 35 years, is reprehensible. There have been 500 to 600 rocket attacks on Israel in the last couple of days.

And as President Bush said today, every country has a right to defend itself. Hezbollah is the one that broke international law and four U.N. Security Council resolutions by crossing the blue line and by being the aggressor in this instance.

GWEN IFILL: Does Israel have to sign off on any U.S. plan to intervene in this?

NICHOLAS BURNS: Well, Israel is a friend and ally of the United States, and so obviously -- I met with the Israeli ambassador today. Secretary Rice and the president have been in touch with the Israeli leadership.

Obviously, we're going to work with Israel, as well as with our friend, Prime Minister Siniora in Lebanon, a person whom we strongly support and whose government we want to support, and we'll work with both of those governments to try to see if we can bring this situation to stability and then to peace.

But the real difficulty here is that Hezbollah -- by the way, a terrorist organization that has killed lots of Americans in the past -- Hezbollah has decided at this point to instigate a crisis with Israel. They have crossed the border. They've crossed the blue line.

And so it's Israel's responsibility to protect itself. It's in the American national interest to exert our strength to see if we can now get Hezbollah to back away from the border, stop shelling Israel, and return the Israeli soldiers.

And obviously we want to see as soon as possible an end to violence, because innocent people in Israel are being killed, and, frankly, innocent civilians in Lebanon are the victims of Hezbollah at this point.

GWEN IFILL: President Bush said yesterday and again today that Syria should get involved. And we had the Syrian ambassador, Mr. Moustapha, on the program last night. And his response was he said it was a simplistic approach and that President Bush thinks that it only suffices for Secretary Annan to call President Bashar Assad through a telephone conversation and, voila, everything is resolved.

Those were his words. Why is so much pressure being applied to Syria?

NICHOLAS BURNS: I wish the Syrian ambassador could be more forthright about what's happening. The Syrian government has been trying to re-supply Hezbollah with Katyusha rockets and Fajr missiles. The Fajr missiles are the longer-range missiles that have been able to hit Haifa and killed nine Israelis there yesterday and the other towns in northern Israel.

Syria has a responsibility to stop arming Hezbollah and to use its direct influence with Sheik Nasrallah, the head of Hezbollah, to get Hezbollah to stop the fighting and to pull back from southern Lebanon so that we can then come in with an effort to provide some stability, and where the United Nations might be effective, obviously, in thinking through a longer-term solution.

But until that happens, until Syria and Iran stop their outright support for Hezbollah, then obviously this is going to be a crisis that's going to be very difficult to resolve.

GWEN IFILL: If you are not speaking directly or you can't see eye to eye with Syria and you can't see eye to eye with Iran, who exactly is going to speak to Hezbollah?

NICHOLAS BURNS: Gwen, I think the problem from our perspective is not a lack of communication between the United States and Iran. We have diplomatic relations with Syria. The problem is not communication.

The problem is that these two states are trying to destabilize Lebanon. Syria had a 30-year occupation of Lebanon that ended last year, negatively for the Syrians.

They're supporting Hezbollah in their terrorist actions against moderate Palestinians, against innocent civilians in Lebanon, as well as against the state of Israel. Hezbollah is the source of the problem, and the two main backers, Syria and Iran, have a lot to answer for.

So we were in St. Petersburg the other day with the G-8 countries, and all of the G-8 leaders said in a formal statement the problem is with Hezbollah and those that support them, Iran and Syria. And it was remarkable to see that degree of unity among leaders as diverse as the Russian president and the Japanese prime minister, the American president.

You're seeing a lot of international pressure -- and from Arab countries as well -- on Syria and Iran to stop the support of Hezbollah, and hopefully it will have some effect in the coming days so that these innocent people being killed, so that violence can stop.

GWEN IFILL: The Israelis have said this could take a couple of weeks. If cease-fire is the eventual goal, but that a prisoner swap has to happen either before or after or simultaneously, what is the next step that you have to take, that the U.S. has to take, in order to accomplish that cease-fire, or do you plan to take, I should ask?

NICHOLAS BURNS: Well, we're in constant contact right now -- as a next step, Gwen, I think -- with Kofi Annan, the secretary general of the U.N., with the Arab countries that have some influence, both on Hezbollah as well as on Iran and Syria.

The first step has to be for Hezbollah to step back from this crisis, and to shift its forces back, and to stop the shelling of Israeli civilians. That is the first step.

If that cannot happen, then there is very little reason to believe that this crisis can be put to an end anytime soon. The United States obviously has an interest here and a responsibility to use our influence wisely. We're doing that.

Secretary Rice has been on the phone several times a day over the last couple of days, and you'll see us being very active working towards peace and stability.

GWEN IFILL: Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns, thank you very much.

NICHOLAS BURNS: Thank you, Gwen.