U.S. Makes Lebanon Evacuation Plans

[babylonsister]

http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2006Jul16/0,4670,USLebanon,00.html

U.S. Makes Lebanon Evacuation Plans
Sunday, July 16, 2006
By TERENCE HUNT, AP White House Correspondent

BEIRUT, Lebanon — The U.S. Embassy in Beirut said Sunday that teams have arrived by helicopter to work out the logistics for evacuating Americans.

U.S. officials are monitoring violence in Lebanon hour-by-hour to decide whether to evacuate the estimated 25,000 Americans there, possibly to the neighboring Mediterranean island of Cyprus where they could board commercial planes.

"We obviously have plans and contingency plans should we need to bring people out,"Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters at the Group of Eight summit Sunday."I get reports on this every couple of hours as to how this is going. Our ambassador who is on the ground will obviously do what we need to protect Americans."

Waves of warplanes bombed Lebanon Sunday, and Hezbollah guerillas continued to fire rockets into Israel. The rockets pounded the northern Israeli city of Haifa in the worst strike on Israel since violence broke out along the border with Lebanon last week.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned there would be"far-reaching consequences"for the rocket attacks from Hezbollah militants. Israel, which has imposed a sea, air and land blockade of Lebanon, wastargeting bridges, roads, the international airport and ports in response to the militants'rocket attacks.

The State Department said Friday that Americans in Lebanon should consider leaving when it was safe to do so. Officials made contingency plans to evacuate people who cannot leave on their own. Family members and non-emergency American employees of the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon have been given permission to leave.

more...

[Kagemusha]

1. Israel doesn't give a damn about non-Lebanese evacuating?

Sure appears that way from where I sit this morning...

[IndianaGreen]

2. America's slow response to evacuate its citizens are Bush's fault

Bush seems more concerned about the fate of a roasted pig than he did about Americans trapped in Lebanon, or Lebanon's pleas for a ceasefire.

[madrchsod]

4. bush is now incapable of making any decisions

this trip has shown that under bush`s presidency the united states no longer is a respected player on the world scene. the works of every president since carter to bring peace to the middle east has been destoryed by the bush whitehouse and the cowards on both sides in the house and senate.

what is appalling to me is that the president of the united states of america stood and listened to the ex head of the kgb lecture to him about democracy. at every turn during bush`s visit to russia-from putins dog jumping on bush to the lecture on democracy bush has had no intelligent answers.

[Demeter]

3. Shades of Reagan, Nixon, Poppy

Makes you want to point out nastly little inevitabilities, doesn't it?

[rodeodance]

5. U.S. evacuation teams arrive in Lebanon

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060716/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_lebanon;_ylt=Am0nYkXDH2AmXHhO.7oj3Aas0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3OTB1amhuBHNlYwNtdHM-

U.S. evacuation teams arrive in Lebanon

By TERENCE HUNT, AP White House Correspondent 9 minutes ago

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia - U.S. security teams landed at the American embassy just outside Beirut on Sunday to plan the evacuation of some of the estimated 25,000 U.S. citizens living in war-torn Lebanon.


Witnesses said two helicopters flew in from over the Mediterranean and landed on the embassy grounds, located on a fortified hilltop in the north Beirut suburb of Aukar.

"The arrival of the teams is an important first step in facilitating the safe departure of Americans who want to leave Lebanon," the embassy said in a statement.

Israeli warplanes began striking Lebanon after Hezbollah guerrillas captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid on Wednesday. The guerrillas have struck back at Israeli cities, and on Sunday fired a relentless barrage of rockets into the Israeli city of Haifa, dramatically escalating the conflict.

[dipsydoodle]

6. Oh - they arrived that soon

I am impressed - not :rofl:

Wonder if there's a questionaire to see who gets flown out first ? Have you ever posted on D.U......................?

[leesa]

7. Let's hope it goes better than New Orleans

[Kagemusha]

8. Planners are great but the original post makes plain that

Israel is condicting a 3-dimensional siege of Lebanon and trying to cut off all avenues of escape for westerners and Lebanese alike... and the US is gonna break through that cordon how?...

By asking nicely?...

[tanyev]

9. Hot air balloons. Shhh...don't tell.

[daleo]

11. You would think that Israel wouldn't interfere

Considering all the assistance they get from the U.S.

[Eugene]

10. Reuters: US evacuates medical cases from Lebanon

US evacuates medical cases from Lebanon
Sun Jul 16, 2006 11:35am ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Marine Corps helicopter carrying nonessential
U.S. embassy personnel and Americans with compelling medical needs left
the U.S. embassy grounds in Lebanon on Sunday bound for Cyprus, U.S.
officials said.

<snip>

Full article: http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-07-16T153521Z_01_N16237536_RTRUKOC_0_US-MIDEAST-USA-CITIZENS-EVACUATION.xml

[daleo]

12. That's 20 gone, 24980 to go. n/t

[Endangered Specie]

13. Cut and Run?

:sarcasm: