U.S. Demands Syrian Cooperation

The United States, France and Britain on Tuesday demanded that Syria detain government officials suspected of involvement in the assassination of a former Lebanese prime minister and ensure their cooperation with a U.N. probe or face possible sanctions.

The call was contained in a draft resolution that orders Syria to make the officials or individuals "fully and unconditionally available" to the U.N. investigating commission.

It states that Syria must allow the commission to interview Syrians that it considers relevant to the inquiry "outside Syria and/or outside the presence of any other Syrian official if the commission so requests."

If Syria does not fully cooperate with the investigation, the draft says the council intends to consider "further measures" to ensure compliance, including sanctions.

The draft resolution also calls for anyone designated by the commission as suspected of involvement in Hariri's assassination to be subject to a travel ban and to have their assets frozen.

The proposed resolution would be under Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter which is militarily enforceable.

The United States and France circulated the resolution hours after the chief U.N. investigator, Detlev Mehlis, briefed the council on his report which implicated top Syrian and Lebanese security officials in the car bomb that killed Hariri and 20 other people.

Mehlis has said repeatedly that Syria had not fully cooperated and continuing the probe would be near impossible if Damascus didn't change course. He took that message directly to the council in his briefing, urging Syria to help "fill in the gaps" about who orchestrated the bombing, both by cooperating with a probe and studying the crime itself.

The draft resolution declares that "it is unacceptable that anyone should escape accountability for an act of terrorism because of his own obstruction of the investigation or failure to cooperate in good faith."

It would endorse the Mehlis commission's conclusion "based on Syria's suspected involvement in this terrorist act and lack of adequate cooperation to the inquiry to date, that it is incumbent upon the Syrian authorities to clarify a considerable part of the questions which remain unresolved."

Under the draft's provisions, Syria would also be required to renounce terrorism and "commit itself definitively to cease all support for all forms of terrorist action and all assistance to terrorist groups and to demonstrate this undertaking through concrete actions."

U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said the Security Council would hold a meeting on Monday at ministerial level to consider the resolution. U.N. diplomats said they expect the ministers to adopt the resolution, which would give added weight to the measure and increase pressure on Syria.

"The formal presentation of the Mehlis report in the Security Council opens the door for the Bush Administration, working with France and the U.K., to find common ground to pass a resolution demanding Syrian cooperation with the investigation," said CBS News Foreign Affairs Analyst Pamela Falk. "More because of the importance of pressuring Syria to cooperate to prevent arms flows to militias attacking U.S. troops in Iraq."

Mehlis' investigation has been extended until Dec. 15 and he told the council his team will re-interview a number of witnesses, interview new ones, complete its examination of recently obtained evidence, and cooperate with Lebanese judicial and security authorities.

The investigating commission also believes the extended investigation "would provide yet another opportunity for the Syrian authorities to show greater and meaningful cooperation, and to provide any relevant substantial evidence on the assassination."

"For this reason, the Syrian authorities may wish to carry out on their part their own investigation into the assassination of Mr. Hariri in an open and transparent manner," Mehlis said. "This would enable the commission to 'fill in the gaps' and to have a clearer picture about the organizers and perpetrators of the Feb. 14 terrorist act."

For such a complex case as the Hariri assassination, Mehlis added that it would be entirely normal for the investigation to take "many months, if not years ... to cover all aspects of investigation with certitude and to prepare a case for prosecution."

He called for increased security for his team of 30 investigators from 17 countries, saying the already high risk the team faced is certain to increase following the report. He added that "the commission has received a number of threats which were deemed, in the assessment of our security personnel, to be credible."

"But Syria's response Tuesday to Mehlis' report, presented by their U.N. Ambassador Fayssal Mekdad was that Syria had been falsely accused," reports Falk, "sending a continued message of defiance."

Mehlis' findings caused an uproar in the region and brought swift denials from the Syrian government, which called the report biased, politicized and an American plot to take over the region.

Mekdad said every paragraph in the report deserved to be refuted and he criticized Mehlis for accusing Syria before the end of the investigation, saying the commission "should not have pointed the finger or cast doubt on anybody."

"Syria has cooperated faithfully and sincerely with the Independent International Commission," Mekdad told the council. "Syria will continue its cooperation..."

The U.S. administration is talking about next Monday as a target date for a resolution, and a ministerial meeting of the Security Council to give its adoption added prominence. But Russia and China,
both veto-wielding members of the council, don't appear in any hurry, and Moscow, which has close ties to Syria, would likely oppose sanctions or any reference to them.

"The Administration is pushing hard to stop to the Syrian funding of insurgents attacking U.S. forces and Israel," says Falk, "and the combination of the Hariri report and the second report due this week add evidence to the allegation that Syria is destabilizing the region."

The Mehlis report accused key Syrian and Lebanese security officials of orchestrating the Feb. 14 bombing that killed Hariri and 20 others. Mehlis acknowledged that he deleted references implicating the brother and brother-in-law of Syrian President Bashar Assad because he didn't know the report would be made public and the allegations were not corroborated.