Bush did not specify what Syrian actions in Lebanon he was referring to but Damascus and its allies in the then-Lebanese government have been widely blamed for Hariri's murder in Beirut. His words came a day after his ambassador to Iraq said military action against Syria was an option on the table.
Bush said he would discuss getting Syria to "change their behavior, particularly as it regards to democracy and trying to prevent democracies from emerging" with U.S. allies at this week's summit in New York. "This is a subject of conversation, of course, I'll have with allies in places like New York and on the other times I communicate with our allies," he said.
Rice aired out her suspicions about Syria's involvement in the Hariri murder in an interview with the editorial board of the CBS.
"Syrian security officials got entangled in the murder of Prime Minister Hariri," she said, wondering how President Assad would explain Syria's unawareness of the occurrence of such a massive assassination operation.
"The Syrians need to account for how it is that Lebanese -- high-ranking Lebanese security officials with well known ties and links to Syrian security officials got entangled in the murder of Prime Minister Hariri." She was referring to Gen. Jamil Sayyed of the Surete Generale, Gen. Mustafa Hamdan of the Presidential Guard Brigade, Gen. Raymond Azar of the army's intelligence service and Gen. Ali Hajj who headed the overall internal security forces when Hariri was murdered. All four are under arrest at the behest of U.N. chief investigator Detlev Mehlis.
Rice raised doubt about Syria's complete evacuation of Lebanon. "We know their military forces are out of Lebanon. A lot of people suspect that they maintain intelligence presence there. And we need to know that Syria is carrying through on its obligations to get out of there and stay out of there. And it shouldn't be that an external power somehow was involved in the assassination of the prime minister of another country -- of the former prime minister, then a candidate for prime minister. So I think this whole Mehlis investigation is extremely important, extremely important."
Rice charged that Syria was still out to strangle Lebanon economically.
She was asked: Do you think that the Syrian government falls apart if the security system falls apart and what are the consequences?
"I don't know because, you know, it is a very opaque system in Syria. I do know that Syria should be fully and completely out of Lebanon, that they ought to recognize Lebanon as an independent state. For instance, it would be very good if they actually had an embassy and an ambassador in Lebanon, which would be a signal that they don't think of Lebanon as some kind of Syrian outpost."
Rice said neither the U.S. nor the U.N. were satisfied with Syria's cooperation with the Mehlis probe.
"We have not been and the U.N. had not been satisfied. We'll see. They've said now they're going to offer cooperation. I don't know what Mehlis has been able to get."
