U.S. Congress Moves to 'Liberate Syria and Lebanon' from 'Dictatorship'

 

Naharnet Beirut, Updated 14 Sep 04, 12:00

The U.S. Congress has passed a new bill that effectively sets the stage for a drive to "liberate Syria and Lebanon" from the Damascus dictatorship along the same lines of Iraq's invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein's regime. The new bill is not binding on the Bush administration, but the sponsors hope it would be the prelude for another binding resolution entitled "the bill for the liberation of Syria and Lebanon," As Safir said in a Washington datelined dispatch on Tuesday. The draft bill was passed without any objecting hand risen at the House on Monday, which prompted the Speaker to declare that the blueprint was passed by a two-thirds majority. Representative Tom Lantos then requested a roll call vote. The Speaker said another session would be scheduled later for this purpose, As Safir reported. Lantos, who recently visited Syria and Lebanon in the course of a Middle East tour, is a sponsor of the new bill along with representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who was the driving force behind last year's Syria Accountability Act under which clamped mild economic sanctions against the Assad regime. An Nahar said in a dispatch from its own Washington correspondent that the newly passed draft bill number 363 condemned "the flagrant human rights and civil rights violations of the people of Syria and Lebanon by the Syrian Arab Republic." Ros-Lehtinen urged the U.S. Congress to "stand by the side of the Syrian people in their daily struggle for freedom," calling the Damascus regime a dictatorship that "continues to occupy Lebanon and turn it into a hostage nation." "The new bill notes that hundreds of Lebanese had been killed by Syria's secret police in addition to the Syrian regime's suppression of its own people," she claimed, according to An Nahar. The bill also calls for the "termination of the illegal Syrian occupation of Lebanon."