U.S. Plans to Build Embassy in Hezbollah Area of Beirut (Despite Staff Objections)

Source: ABC News

Despite protests from the U.S. ambassador in Lebanon, the State Department is pushing ahead with plans to build a new embassy in a part of Beirut city controlled by the anti-U.S. Hezbollah group.

A U.S. official tells the Blotter on ABCNews.com that Ambassador Jeffrey Feltman, in a May 31, 2007 classified cable to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, registered his strong objections, saying his staff "unanimously opposes construction" of the embassy on the proposed site.

Hezbollah is believed to be behind two attacks on the U.S. Embassy and an embassy annex in 1983 and 1984 that led to the deaths of 87 people, including eight CIA employees.

Last week, the National Intelligence Estimate on threats to national security cited Hezbollah, closely aligned with Iran, as a group that could potentially attack the United States.

U.S. officials say the proposed embassy site is just a few hundred yards from the scene of fierce fighting last summer between Hezbollah and Israeli forces.



Read more: http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/07/us-plans-to-bui.html

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Usual Bush/Cheney/Rice brilliance at work. Looking for an excuse to attack Hezbollah?

...the upcoming bombing campaign against Iran, Hezbollah's patron. The plan/hope is that one of the bomb hits will result in a massive radiation leak from the nuclear facilities near Tehran, thereby killing off or seriously poisoning most of the senior government officials in the Iranian capitol. Of course, even better would be a nuclear-tipped cruise missile hit on the site, and we could then claim that that there was an accidental explosion at the facility that leveled Tehran and killed all those people. In either case, Hezbollah would lose it's supplier and the proposed embassy site could then be cleansed with no threat of Iranian intervention.

Doesn't it INFURIATE you, how you have no say in
the mad spending of the war mongers?

Wonder how much this new behemoth is costing the tax payers...
BHN

So they can justify invading Iran?

The elite in this country can only stay that way as long as the US leads the way with conflicts (wars) in the ME. Neither we nor Israel is really interested in peace, just control. The war machine is very, very profitable to top 5% in both countries. War is, afterall, a rackett.

the hallmark of this criminal administration

The Blotter has learned that plans for a controversial new U.S. Embassy in Beirut have been put on hold indefinitely, and effectively killed, according to a U.S. State Department spokesperson.

The news came just hours after we reported the State Department had been pushing ahead with plans to build the new embassy in a part of Beirut controlled by the militant anti-American group Hezbollah, despite strong protests from the U.S. ambassador in Lebanon.

A U.S. official tells the Blotter on ABCNews.com that Ambassador Jeffrey Feltman, in a May 31, 2007 classified cable to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, registered his strong objections, saying his staff "unanimously opposes construction" of the embassy on the proposed site.

Feltman also said in the cable that his local staff would be "an easy target" for Hezbollah and that U.S. diplomats would "be under siege" during any conflict.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/07/us-plans-to-bui.html

If Hezbollah wanted too, they could find a way to damage the embassy in its current location. I'm a European and hold an American passport, and I was fine spending time in South Beirut. If anything, an embassy in that are might deter the Israelis from blowing South Beirut to rubble in the next war.