LONDON: The United States resisted calls for a cease-fire in last summer's Israel-Lebanon war to give Israel time to defeat Hizbullah, the former US envoy to the United Nations said.
The demand for an immediate cease-fire - backed by much of the international community but ignored for weeks by the United States and Britain - was "dangerous and misguided," John Bolton said in a BBC interview aired Thursday.
Bolton agreed with the assertion that the US had given Israel free rein.
"What was wrong with that?" Bolton said. "They had been attacked, they were responding. The fact was that Israel was subject to a military threat from Hizbullah on a continuous basis. Hizbullah had committed an act of aggression and Israel was reacting in its own self-defense. And if reacting in its own self-defense meant the defeat of the enemy, that was perfectly legitimate, under international law and frankly under good politics."
The United States eventually backed diplomatic moves for a cease-fire and the deployment of international peacekeepers to end the 34-day conflict.
Approximately 1,200 people were killed in Lebanon during the fighting. Most were Lebanese civilians. A total of 159 Israelis, mainly soldiers, were also killed in Hizbullah clashes with Israeli troops and by Hizbullah rockets lobbed into Israel.
Israel failed to achieve its main goals - destroying Hizbullah and returning two Israeli soldiers captured by Hizbullah.
Bolton, who stepped down from his UN post in December after failing to gain Senate ap-proval, said he was "damned proud of what we did."
Bolton was interviewed for a BBC radio documentary on the war to be broadcast in full next month. The former ambassador r is writing a book about his days at the UN titled "Surrender is Not an Option."
British Foreign Office Minister Kim Howells said Bolton's remarks came as a surprise.
"I certainly didn't get the sense that there was some sort of formal collusion between the Americans and the Israelis," he told the BBC.
A Hizbullah spokesperson said Bolton's comments indicate that the US administration is responsible for the war, "as a main partner in carrying out a joint US/Israeli policy aimed at the Lebanese people which Israel carried out."
"This confirms all we have said in the past, that the US ... which gave the green light, along with Israel, are responsible for the killing of Lebanese children and all the destruction brought on to the country."
"It also confirms what we have said ... This is an administration of war that aims to create 'destructive chaos' in the region, it is a terrorist administration and all its members' hands are stained with the blood of Lebanese children as well as the children of Iraq and Palestine."
The spokesperson asked what position members of the March 14 Forces would take now of a man they once called a friend: "Bolton's statements condemn those who consider him a friend as he is only a friend to the Israeli enemy." - AP, with additional reporting by Hani M. Bathish
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