a href=”http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/03/20050316-6.html” target=”blank”>White House

PRESIDENT BUSH: Your Eminence, welcome. It is my honor to welcome you and your distinguished delegation to the Oval Office. We’re — thank you for your conversation.

His Eminence and I discussed, of course, Lebanon, and our deep desire for Lebanon to be a truly free country — free where people can worship the way they choose to, free where people can speak their mind, free where political parties can flourish, a country based upon free elections. And I assured His Eminence that United States policy is to work with friends and allies to insist that Syria completely leave Lebanon, Syria take all her troops out of Lebanon, Syria take her intelligence services out of Lebanon, so that the election process will be free and fair.

His Eminence is a man of God. He brings great prestige of the Church to the Oval Office. And I’m proud you’re here, Your Eminence, and thank you for your time.

Now His Eminence would like to say a few words.

CARDINAL SFEIR: Thank you very much, Mr. President. I come to the White House in response to the invitation of His Excellency, President George W. Bush, and to thank him for his courteous and warm reception. I would also like to express my deep gratitude for his sincere interest in Lebanon, the freedom of its people, and in peace in Lebanon and the world.

This was a good opportunity to exchange views on the situation in Lebanon, and the questions of freedom and democracy in our region. We profited from this occasion to convey to President Bush the views and aspirations of all the Lebanese.

(Inaudible) — by the continuing migration of Christian and Muslim youth due to the lack of job opportunities and the suffocating political conditions at home. We look forward to see these conditions reversed because the future of Lebanon requires the talents and energy of all her children.

It is important to recall that Lebanon was the first democracy — democratic country in the region. Maybe it was not a perfect democracy, but Lebanon remains the role and the point of departure for the spread of democracy in the region. This is why His Holiness, Pope John Paul II, stated that Lebanon is an ideal for freedom and democracy for the East and West, and this is what we have repeated here.

We are hopeful that the Lebanese, with the support of their friends around the world, will be able to build a better future in a free, independent, pluralistic and sovereign Lebanon.

Thank you.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Your Eminence, thank you, sir.

Patrick Baz, AFP / Getty Images

Hundreds of protesters waving Lebanese flags returned to central Beirut on Tuesday to demand Syria quit Lebanon after the toppling of the Syrian-backed government by what the media called “people power.”

Lebanese officials began a search for a new premier after the government of Prime Minister Omar Karami resigned on Monday following two weeks of protests, piling more pressure on Damascus, already under fire from the United States and Israel.

Thousands of demonstrators turned a square in Beirut into a sea of Lebanese flags on Monday night and exploded into riotous celebration when the government unexpectedly quit after a parliament debate on the killing of ex-premier Rafik al-Hariri.

Hussein Malla, AP

The jubilant protesters left in the early hours of Tuesday only for a few hundred to return hours later, vowing to keep up their street protests until Syrian troops left the country.

“Our hopes are growing regarding Syria’s exit after the resignation of the government,” Patrick Risha, a 22-year-old political science student told Reuters at Martyrs Square. “This encourages us to stay here and continue our protest.”

“We will not go to school. We will keep coming here until (President Emile) Lahoud is toppled and the Syrians leave Lebanon,” Elainne Hajj, 16, said.

Most of the opposition protesters are Maronite Christians, who have long opposed Syria’s role in Lebanon, Druze and some Sunni Muslims. Shi’ite Muslims, Lebanon’s largest community, have mainly stayed away from the anti-Syrian rallies.

“Government falls under the pressure of the people and the hammer of the opposition,” said Al-Mustaqbal daily, owned by the late Hariri.

“People power brings down Karami’s cabinet,” the headline in Beirut’s English-language Daily Star newspaper read.

“Electricity is in the air. Beirut is a sea of excitement, and activity and turmoil,” it said in an editorial. “The word ‘revolution’ is on many lips.”

Reuters / AOL News

Damascus filed only a mild protest at Washington’s tardiness in repatriating the five Syrian soldiers captured by US troops when on June 18 when they attacked a convoy suspected of carrying Saddam Hussein in flight to Syria. The Syrians, three wounded, were handed back Monday, June 30. The Bashar government did not make too much of a fuss over the incident, inhibited by reasons set forth in the account carried in DEBKA-Net-Weekly on June 27:

The importance of the US commando attack on June 18 lies in its location – inside Syria. A US official indeed admitted the American force may have pursued part of the convoy across the Iraqi border into Syria. In fact, the subsequent clash, in which five Syrian border guards were captured, occurred at the Syrian border post of Abu Kamal, 365 miles south of Damascus. The convoy was destroyed.

Our military sources reveal that the Syrian side lost between 25 and 30 dead in their first encounter with US combatants. Syrian president Bashar Assad and Syrian military chiefs monitored the incident from the war room of general headquarters in Damascus. He ordered the ground troops to fight, but was wary of an air engagement and halted all Syrian military traffic when US warplanes crossed into his country’s airspace.

DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military sources note that American anti-Syrian military action – widely expected last March when Syria was found to be pushing Arab fighters into Iraq to fight against the United States – was launched in fact on June 18.

Fighting on the American side was the elite Task Force 20 set up to hunt down Saddam Hussein and his sons Uday and Qusay and unearth Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.

Both these missions necessitate deep thrusts into Syria, for which Pentagon authority has been given – initially for the border regions. The US commandos lie in wait for senior officers of the deposed Saddam regime on their way to and from Syria, a path well trodden since in the end of the war, and seek leads to Iraq’s unconventional weapons where the task force’s commanders believe them to be stashed: in western Iraq, northern Syria and eastern Lebanon. The also attempt to cut down on the influx from Syria into Iraq of the Arab fighters, mostly Syrian, boosting anti-American resistance in the country.

Read more at DEBKAfile