When March 14 Requests ‘Money’ to Confront Hezbollah!

Local Editor

Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar published on Wednesday new leaked US Embassy cables from 2006 and 2009 in which many March 14 figures were calling Washington to provide them with money.

While one cable quoted the head of the Progressive Socialist Party MP Walid Jumblatt, who was at the time the March 14 leader, as saying that his bloc doesn’t currently need money but democracy, another quoted MP Marwan Hamadeh as claiming that Lebanese would remember who gave them money and not who built bridges .

JUMBLATT REGRETFUL AFTER SAUDI VISIT

A July 11, 2006, cable spoke of meeting between MP Walid Jumblatt and then US Ambassador to Lebanon Jeffery Feltman during which he told him about his July 7 visit to Saudi Arabia which he said was aimed at convincing newly crowned Saudi King Abdullah to finance the March 14 camp.

According to the cable, Jumblatt told the Saudi monarch that the funding he was requesting "was aimed at confronting the Shiite expansion in Lebanon and the region," in reference to Hezbollah, Iran and Syria.

However, the cable says that King Abdullah was not receptive to the suggestion. “He didn’t answer me. He only looked at me,” Jumblatt was quoted as telling Feltman. “His predecessor was much more generous,” he reportedly added.

According to the cable, Jumblatt was frank concerning his need for foreign financing. He recalled the past, when former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri was alive. He said that Hariri used to provide him with a yearly income of three million dollars. Now, he needs the same amount or even more. Yet, he didn’t find another source.

JUMBLATT: WE DON’T NEED DEMOCRACY BUT MONEY

During a later cable, dated August 21, 2006, the PSP leader said that the Lebanese government should "act quickly to defeat Hezbollah’s reconstruction efforts" after the July 2006 war.

Jumblatt estimated that the some 200 million dollars would be needed to rebuild the 15,000 residential units destroyed during the war. "This is a tiny figured compared to Hariri's capabilities!" he highlighted.

"We currently don't need democracy, but money," the MP went on to say.


LEBANESE WILL REMEMBER WHO GAVE THEM MONEY!

MP Marwan Hamadeh was not better…

According to a US leaked cable published in Al-Akhbar on Wednesday, Hamadeh stressed the importance of money in confronting Hezbollah’s growing influence in Lebanon.

The cable, dated August 20, 2006, spoke of a meeting between Hamadeh, then MP Nayla Mouawad and then US ambassador to Lebanon Jeffrey Feltman.

During the meeting, Hamadeh and Mouawad expressed hope that the American administration would pressure Arab Gulf states to transfer political funds to the March 14 camp to confront Hezbollah.

Hamadeh also hoped that the U.S. would also pressure Saudi Arabia to grant Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblatt 3-4 million dollars to "keep the Druze aligned with the March 14 camp."

"The Lebanese will remember who gave them money and not who built bridges," Hamadeh and Mouawad said in reference to the reconstruction process after the July 2006 war. “We are a waging an existential war and money is the enemy's best weapon,” he pointed out.

SANIORA DOESN’T WANT MONEY TO GO TO BERRI’S POCKET

Yet, the March 14 bloc was strong enough to reject money transfer, out of fear it might go to the other bloc’s ‘pocket’.

A leaked US cable revealed that then Prime Minister Fouad Saniora had rejected a transfer of 500 and 300 million dollars to Lebanon aimed at rebuilding the country after the July 2006 war.

The WikiLeaks cable spoke of a meeting between Saniora and then US Ambassador to Lebanon Jeffrey Feltman on August 18, 2006, during which the former premier explained that he rejected the aid money from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait “because he didn't want the money to go to Speaker Nabih Berri's pocket.”

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