Lebanese Government Makes Efforts to Rebuild
PHILLIPS: U.S. Marines in court. Hearings start today at Camp Pendleton for seven Marines and a Navy corpsman, all charged with murdering an unarmed Iraqi man four months ago. Prosecutors say the troops took the victim from his home in Hamdaniya, shot him, then tried to make him look like an insurgent. Defense lawyers question the credibility of the Iraqis who reported the killing. The hearings will determine whether to recommend courts-martial. The blockade isn't budging for now. U.N. chief Kofi Annan has failed to move Israel to lift its air and sea blockade of Lebanon. Israel worries that would open the flow of weapons to Hezbollah. But after meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Annan says that Israel's concerns are being addressed.</s>KOFI ANNAN, U.N. SECRETARY-GENERAL: I think we need to be able to take care of the concerns of Israel. And I understand the issue of rearmament, that we need to make sure that arms do not come in, either through the airports and the borders, or through the seaports. And I can assure you that in my discussions with the Lebanese authorities, they are taking this issue seriously, and they are taking measures to deal with it. And the international community should work with them to deal with it. But in the meantime, I do believe that the blockade should be lifted.</s>PHILLIPS: Well, Israel says that it will lift the blockade once international forces are on the ground, along Lebanon's borders with Israel and Syria. Now Lebanon is offering roughly $33,000 to citizens who lost their homes in the fighting with Israel. Two weeks ago, Hezbollah began handing out $12,000 payments in Southern Beirut. CNN's Anthony Mills is in the Lebanese capital to tell us more about those checks -- Anthony.</s>ANTHONY MILLS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Kyra, it really does appear as though the Lebanese government is trying to re-seize the initiative now with this package of $33,000 or so. After being almost embarrassed a couple weeks ago when Hezbollah was handing out wads of cash in the southern suburbs, $12,000 a head to people who lost their homes there. And this in the run-up to a conference which will be attended -- a donor conference in Stockholm, Sweden, which will be attended by government officials. Now, even in the cleanup there is Hezbollah eclipsing the Lebanese government. Let's take a look.</s>MILLS (voice-over): An aerial survey of Lebanon's coastline, stained by a massive oil slick, six weeks after thousands of tons of oil leaked into the sea from a power plant struck by Israeli missiles in the heat of war. Along the coast, oil blackens beaches, coats rocks, clogs ports and settles on the sea bed. In the normally bustling fishing harbor of Biblos, north of Beirut, boats sit idle, trapped in a black sludge.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): All these nets are ruined. They cost $5,000-6,000. Nobody's helping us or compensating us.</s>MILLS: Lebanon's government hopes that an international donor conference in the Swedish capital, Stockholm, on Friday will yield hundreds of millions of dollars in funds for reconstruction. But before Lebanon can begin large-scale reconstruction of homes, the country's damaged infrastructure must be fixed and thousands of tons of rubble cleaned up.</s>YAACOUB SARRAF, LEBANESE ENVIRONMENT MINISTER: We need to remove, to clear the areas of the rubble. We need to take care for the infrastructure first.</s>MILLS: In Beirut's once densely populated southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold heavily bombarded throughout the five-week Israel/Hezbollah war, there is one destroyed building after another. Hezbollah has been quick to organize a huge cleanup effort in the suburbs it controls. (on camera) All day long, hundreds of trucks transport twisted metal and concrete from Beirut's devastated southern suburbs and dump it here, creating a mountain of rubble. (voice-over) Although government officials say the government is involved in the cleanup, this is very much a Hezbollah-run operation, in the heart of Hezbollah-controlled territory. Armed guards, who ordered us not to film them, watch over the dump site. And everywhere are Hezbollah symbols. A foreman with a Hezbollah association, overseeing the cleanup, who declines to reveal his last name, highlights Hezbollah's role.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): They're helping us a lot. We are very grateful for that.</s>MILLS: As Lebanon's prime minister, Fouad Siniora, heads to the Sweden donor conference, seeking to reassert governmental authority in the cleanup and reconstruction process, back home in the southern suburbs, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, not Prime Minister Siniora, is seen as a savior.</s>MILLS: Even in the cleanup process in the southern suburbs, Kyra, there's no question that Hezbollah's in control.</s>PHILLIPS: Anthony, the latest on Lebanon's rebuilding effort. Let's talk about that for a minute. There definitely appears to be a constant tug-of-war between Hezbollah and the government to this point. Do you think they'll find any common ground?</s>MILLS: Well, there really is a tug-of-war. On the face of it, people are talking of unity, and there's no real attacking -- direct attacking of one party by the other. But there's certainly a tag of war in efforts to appear to really be doing something. I think the Lebanese government really was stung by criticism in the early stages of the cleanup, when Hezbollah suddenly started distributing these packages of cash in the southern suburbs and the Lebanese government was effectively accused of, A, doing nothing, and even, to a certain extent, allowing a state to function within a state. Because we're talking about a large sum of money. There are thousands of people who have lost their homes. By the prime minister's account himself today in the press conference, 50,000 homes were either partially or completely destroyed in those southern suburbs. So this is really the Lebanese government fighting back.</s>PHILLIPS: Anthony Mills, live from Beirut, thank you. Three more Brits are charged today with plotting to smuggle liquid bombs onto airliners bound for the U.S. Fifteen suspects have now been charged out of 25 people arrested by Scotland Yard in connection with that alleged plot. Five remain in custody but have not been charged. Five others have been released. A lunch hour hit and run rampage. The weapon, an SUV. Details from San Francisco. Plus, a fast-moving wildfire in Southern California. Two communities threatened. We're going to take you there, straight ahead on LIVE FROM.