House unit votes for sanctions on Syria

IHT, WASHINGTON A House of Representatives committee voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to impose economic and diplomatic sanctions on Syria after the White House, deeply frustrated in its diplomatic contacts with Damascus, dropped its opposition to such punitive steps.
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The House International Relations Committee voted 33-2 for the Syria Accountability Act, which demands that Damascus halt support for terrorism, end any programs to develop weapons of mass destruction and withdraw its troops from Lebanon.
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The full House, where 275 of 435 members co-sponsored the bill, is expected to pass the measure next week. The bill also has strong bipartisan support in the Senate, where the Foreign Relations Committee is planning to examine the measure this month.
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In acknowledging that the White House had ended two years of opposition to the legislation, a spokesman, Scott McClellan, said, “Syria needs to change course, change its behavior, stop harboring terrorists.” The administration had held that such punitive legislation could intrude on the president's foreign policy prerogatives, damage broader Middle East peace efforts and undercut any Syrian cooperation in the war on terrorism.
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Despite such past concerns, said Richard Boucher, the State Department spokesman, “Frankly, the Syrians have done so little with regard to terrorism that we don't have a lot to work with.” They continue to have “terrorist groups operating with offices and activities there, some training facilities, transshipments” of weapons or money – and when asked to halt, had taken only “very, very, very small steps.” The White House decision followed the Israeli air attack on a Syrian camp that Israel described as a terrorist training center; this came in retribution for a suicide bombing that killed 19 in the Israeli port city of Haifa.
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Passage of the Syria bill would further inflame U.S. relations with many Arab countries, already strained by the war with Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
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But Boucher said that “what we're more worried about is groups that go around blowing up innocent people and undermining the Palestinian cause,” a reference to the series of bombing attacks that have claimed scores of victims in Israel and often been blamed on militant groups sheltered in Syria.
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U.S. dialogue with Syria on this matter had been “very intense,” Boucher said. “But dialogue at some point has to lead to action.” The air strike and a series of inflammatory comments from both Israel and Syria have sharply raised fears in the region that a dangerous new conflict could break out.
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In Beirut, the United Nations' top Middle East envoy, Terje Roed-Larsen, urged Syria and Israel on Wednesday not to allow the Israeli strike to escalate into a wider conflict.
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''Attacks and counterattacks like these are taking us down a steep and precarious path toward more violence,” he said, Reuters reported.
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After the Iraq war, fears spread in the region that Syria, long on the U.S. list of terror-sponsoring states and frequently mentioned as a sort of junior member of President George W. Bush's ''axis of evil,” might be the next target of U.S. military might. The administration rejected such suggestions, however.
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The Syrian government, and people who live near the camp targeted by the Israeli strike, insisted that it was abandoned years ago. But to the administration, the air strike apparently was seen as underscoring Damascus's failure, in the face of persistent U.S. demands, to cut all ties to terror groups.
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Republicans in Congress said this week that the Israeli attack could help them move ahead with the Syria legislation.
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It calls on Syria to end all cooperation with Hamas, Hezbollah and other terror-linked groups, to halt any development of biological or chemical weapons and of medium- or long-range missiles and to withdraw its several thousand troops from Lebanon, where they have been for decades.
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The bill threatens economic and diplomatic sanctions.
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It would also require the president to impose at least two punitive measures from a list of six offered. They comprise a downgrading of diplomatic ties, a ban on all U.S. exports to Syria, travel restrictions on Syrian diplomats, a freeze on Syrian assets, a halt to Syrian commercial flights to the United States and a ban on American business investment in Syria.
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When Secretary of State Colin Powell went to Damascus in May, the visit itself drew strong reaction from Syria's critics in Washington. He reportedly told President Bashar Assad that the legislation was likely to move ahead unless Syria took firm measures against terrorism.
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But while Powell demanded, for example, that Syria close the offices in Damascus of anti-Israel militant groups, the groups are believed to still be operating there. Boucher disputed assertions that these are merely information offices. “They are not merely information offices, there are very significant activities,” he said.
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A State Department official said last month that Powell had been quietly pursuing contacts with Syria and that the administration would hold off supporting the legislation in hopes those contacts would bear fruit.
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John Bolton, under secretary for arms control, told a congressional committee on Sept. 16 that despite continued Syrian cooperation with terrorist groups, the administration was not ready to endorse sanctions. “Secretary Powell has been engaged in some very intensive diplomacy with the government of Syria,” Bolton said. ''He's engaged, even as we speak, in some very delicate balancing of a variety of factors, diplomatic and political.”
International Herald Tribune