Recent media reports in the U.S. and UK suggested that the CIA has been authorized to take covert action against Hezbollah, as part of wider plan by the Bush administration to crush the Lebanese resistance group.

Such accusations were reiterated this month by Hezbollah’s deputy secretary general, Sheikh Naim Qassim, who said that the United States is waging a “covert war” against Hezbollah by arming militias opposed to the resistance group.

"The U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney has given orders for a covert war against Hezbollah. There is now an American program that is using Lebanon to further Washington's goals in the region," Sheikh Qassim said in a recent interview with Britain’s Guardian daily.

According to the newspaper, U.S. intelligence agencies have been authorized to provide "non-lethal" funding to anti-Hezbollah groups in Lebanon and to activists who support the western-backed government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora.

“This happens with the knowledge of the prime minister and is facilitated by the security forces under his command,” Sheikh Qassim was quoted as saying.

The Guardian also said that the Bush administration had earmarked $60 million to boost the Lebanese interior ministry’s internal security force, which has almost doubled in size to 24,000 troops.

Sheikh Qassim described the interior ministry’s force as increasingly biased against Hezbollah. “The internal security forces have not succeeded in playing a balanced role... The sectarian issue is very delicate when it comes to the security services,” he warned.

Sheikh Qassim, who was interviewed last week from a safe house in southern Lebanon, also charged that the U.S. had thwarted attempts by the Lebanese government and the Hezbollah-led opposition to reach a compromise over a months-old political crisis triggered by the government’s failure to form a unity coalition.

"We think that if it wasn't for the U.S. interference, we would have resolved the issue of participating in the government a long time ago," he said. "America is forcing the government forces to prolong this crisis; because they want a price for it. They want to tie Lebanon into negotiations that benefit Israel and their plan for a new Middle East."

Sheikh Qassim also didn’t rule out another conflict between Hezbollah and Israel this summer. “We are prepared for the possibility of another adventure or the demand of American policy that might push the Israel army in that direction,” he said.

A UN-brokered ceasefire ended the Israeli-Hezbollah war in August after more than 1,200 mostly Lebanese civilians were killed in Israel’s vast bombardment of the country and land invasion in the south. The Israeli army lost 116 soldiers. Forty-three Israeli civilians were also killed by more than 4,000 Hezbollah rocket attacks.

During the 34-day conflict, Israel failed to crush Hezbollah or retrieve two soldiers captured by the resistance group in July, an excuse the Israelis used to launch the deadly offensive in Lebanon. ----- “Pre-planned” -----------

Last month, former U.S. envoy to the UN, John Bolton, admitted that Washington deliberately resisted calls for an immediate ceasefire to end the conflict. He told the BBC that the United States wanted Israel to eliminate Hezbollah’s military capability before any truce can be implemented. Washington decided to join efforts to end the fighting only when it was clear that Israel’s campaign to crush Hezbollah wasn’t working, Bolton said, adding that he was “damned proud of what we did.”

Also last month, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said that he had been preparing for a huge assault on Lebanon before the capture of the Israeli soldiers, confirming Western media reports that the Israeli army had been preparing for such a war for years, and had shared its plans with the United States.

Moreover, Meyrav Wurmser, the wife of David Wurmser, Vice-President Dick Cheney’s adviser on the Middle East, recently told Israel’s leading newspaper, Yediot Aharonot, that the Bush administration stalled over imposing a ceasefire during Israel’s assault on Lebanon because it was expecting the war to be expanded to Syria. “The anger

[in the White House] is over the fact that Israel did not fight against the Syrians. The neocons are responsible for the fact that Israel got a lot of time and space. They believed that Israel should be allowed to win. A great part of it was the thought that Israel should fight against the real enemy, the one backing Hezbollah. It was obvious that it is impossible to fight directly against Iran, but the thought was that its

[Iran's] strategic and important ally

[Syria] should be hit," Wurmser said.

Putting all the pieces together, Israel had a plan, approved by the U.S., to launch war against Lebanon – followed by possible strikes against Syria – using the pretext of Hezbollah’s capture of the two soldiers. The real intention, analysts say, was to weaken what are seen by Israel and the U.S. to be Iran’s allies before attacking the Islamic Republic itself. (Source: Aljazeera.com)