U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has spoken with Israel's deputy leader and her French counterpart amid efforts to quickly create an international military force to help implement the U.N. peace plan for Lebanon, the State Department said. However, there is still no clear timetable for creating the peacekeeping force, expected to number 15,000 troops, or for its deployment to southern Lebanon, spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters. Rice met at her office with Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres for talks on implementing the U.N. resolution and on broader Middle East issues, McCormack said. Rice also spoke by telephone with her French counterpart, whose country is expected to take command of the U.N. peacekeeping force. “Secretary Rice spoke this morning with Foreign Minister [Philippe] Douste-Blazy on just this matter, … and both agreed that it is very important that this force get generated as quickly as possible and get deployed as quickly as possible,” McCormack said. McCormack repeatedly declined to provide a timetable for the international force's deployment, saying much work still needs to be done to create the force and get the logistics in place for deployment. “Certainly, we understand that this force needs to be generated on an urgent basis, and it needs to be deployed as quickly as possible,” he said.
