“The international community must now designate the leadership of this new international force, give it robust rules of engagement and deploy it as quickly as possible to secure the peace,” he told a Monday morning briefing at the new White House press quarters.
The US president again defended the Israeli aggression against Lebanon, claiming that Israel invaded the Arab nation because ‘a state within state’ had launched attacks on Israeli sites from southern part of the country.
The US government not only blames Hezbollah for the conflict but also insists that there can be no peace in Lebanon until Hezbollah is disarmed.
A UN resolution calls for 15,000 troops to uphold the week-old ceasefire.
While the US has endorsed the UN call for contributing troops to this force, it does not plan to send its own troops.
Instead, the US has offered to provide logistical support, command and control and intelligence facilities to the proposed force.
“It’s the most effective contribution we can make at this time,” Mr Bush said.
Israel said on Monday that it supported Italy taking charge of a strengthened UN peacekeeping force that will join the Lebanese army in policing the truce in southern Lebanon.
Italy has already won the backing of Lebanon, whose cabinet is expected to approve the initiative.
Mr Olmert’s office had rejected the participation of nations that has no diplomatic relations with Israel.
This would include Indonesia, Malaysia and Bangladesh, which have all offered front-line troops for the force.
Mr Bush opened his press conference with a statement about humanitarian aid for Lebanon, pledging an additional $230 million to help rebuild homes, hospitals, schools, roads and airports destroyed by Israel.
IRAQ: Turning to Iraq, Mr Bush warned his nation that there would be dire consequences if the current Iraqi government was allowed to fail.
Iraq would become a ‘safe haven for terrorists and extremists’, and that would share with terrorists the revenues it gets from its vast oil resources.
Mr Bush said he’s ‘concerned’ about talk of civil war but assured the Iraqi government that the US was ‘not going to leave before the mission is complete’.
He said he agrees with a top US military commander that if the United States were to do so, ‘the terrorists will follow us here’.
Mr Bush said those who want an immediate pullout from Iraq were ‘absolutely wrong’. He said it ‘takes time’ to defeat the extremists, but that the US was going to ‘stand with’ the government of Iraq, and with reformers across the region.
On Iran, Mr Bush said the United States was getting some inkling of Tehran’s response to international calls for it to abandon its nuclear ambitions.
A UN Security Council resolution passed last month called on Tehran to suspend uranium enrichment by August 31 or face the threat of economic and diplomatic sanctions.
“We are beginning to get some indication, but we’ll wait until they have a formal response,” Mr Bush said.
“Dates are fine, but what really matters is will. And one of the things I will continue to remind our friends and allies is the danger of a nuclear-armed Iran.”
Mr Bush said there must be ‘more than one voice speaking clearly to the Iranians’.
This was his first full scale news conference since July 7 in Chicago and was held in the White House conference centre, the temporary quarters for White House news reporters during a renovation of the media briefing room in the West Wing.