But is it enough?
International interest in reforming the Lebanese army was triggered by the Syrian disengagement from Lebanon last year, but the month-long war this summer between Hizbullah and Israel has given the process a renewed sense of urgency.
Within days of the ceasefire coming into effect on August 14, some 15,000 soldiers were dispatched to the area south of the Litani river to take up new positions in territory vacated by withdrawing Israeli troops – the first time Lebanese troops have been posted on the border with Israel in more than three decades.
“There is no place prohibited for it and when the army sees any weapon even in the hands of the resistance, it will confiscate it,” Prime Minister Fuad Seniora said in an interview with Orbit television in mid-September.
The Lebanese troops in the South will be coordinating closely with UNIFIL II, the name given to the newly-reinforced UN Interim Force in Lebanon which is slated to increase in size from 2,000 to 15,000 by the end of November.
Hizbullah, whose fighters have abandoned the border positions established over the past six years, has raised no objections to the deployment of Lebanese troops in the South, satisfied that the army will not attempt to disarm the group.
Border protection role
The government and international military donors believe that the future principle role of the Lebanese army is to maintain border security, tightening Lebanon’s notoriously porous frontier with Syria and preventing outbreaks of violence along the sensitive border with Israel, including repelling overflights in Lebanese airspace by Israeli aircraft.
With that in mind, foreign military specialists are recommending a more streamlined, mobile and better-coordinated military force that can respond quickly to trouble.
Following the Syrian disengagement from Lebanon last year, the government commissioned assessment studies from the UK and the US on what was required to reform and improve the capabilities of the Lebanese army. After the August 14 ceasefire came into effect, a British military team updated its assessment on the Lebanese army and recommended 16,000 troops in South Lebanon, 8,000 to patrol the border with Syria and another 1,000 to protect the maritime border.
That the Lebanese army requires a thorough overhaul is beyond question. Although the army has a comparatively large amount of equipment for a force of around 45,000 soldiers (the present strength is some 60,000 after 15,000 reservists were mobilized during the recent war with Israel), much of it is obsolete or non-functioning, and a mix of US, French and Soviet hardware. The army’s 310 tanks date from the 1950s and are only effective in an internal security context. US-made trucks and jeeps also date from the 1950s. The air force consists of 23 Vietnam era UH-1 Huey helicopters. The navy’s seven British coastal patrol craft have limited firepower and radar capabilities and are too slow for anti-infiltration and anti-smuggling operations. Of the 27 US-made small inshore patrol vessels given to the navy in 1994, only 10 to 12 are operational.
Spare parts for much of the equipment are no longer available, forcing the army to cannibalize from existing gear and come up with ingenious alternatives to keep vehicles on the road.
“Since the Syrian army was here, there’s been very little procurement for the Lebanese army, but they have done a magnificent job with what they have,” said one Western defense attaché.
The Lebanese army also made an assessment of equipment needs, a “wish list” of state-of-the-art weapons systems which never stood a realistic chance of being fulfilled. The list, which was seen by Executive, included five dozen heavy tanks, several combat helicopters, such as Apache or Cobra attack helicopters, nearly 30 patrol boats and a number of self-propelled 155mm artillery guns, in all amounting to nearly $1 billion.
“Their list was a non-starter,” said a Western diplomat. “Even if they were to receive what they wanted, the Lebanese army is too small and lacks the logistical back-up to utilize such equipment.”
The figure has been slashed to under $100 million and most of the offensive weaponry such as heavy artillery and aircraft has been replaced on the list by more mundane, but vital, logistical items such as transport vehicles, and communications and surveillance equipment.
Minister of Defense Elias Murr also envisages a lighter-armed, more mobile military. He apparently disavowed the army’s “wish list” and is placing emphasis on twin-propellered troop transport helicopters capable of ferrying soldiers rapidly to remote areas of the border as well as anti-tank missiles and anti-aircraft weapons as a means of thwarting potential Israeli air and ground incursions. The utility of advanced anti-tank missiles was proven during the Hizbullah-Israel war where they accounted for some 50 of the Israeli army’s 119 fatalities and destroyed, disabled or damaged 46 tanks and 14 other armored vehicles.
Mixed signals
While the needs of the army are well understood, organizing the transfer of equipment has been slow, hampered by a lack of coordination chiefly among potential foreign donors, according to diplomats in Beirut.
Britain has offered to be the lead country in coordinating which donor nation allocates what equipment or service to prevent overlap.
“You don’t need four countries all offering dog training,” said one Western diplomat.
The US, which has supplied the army with much of its equipment under the “excess defense articles” program, and France, with its traditional links to Lebanon, were seen as politically unacceptable to lead the coordination effort to revamp the Lebanese army.
While foreign donors recognize the need for coordination, “international sensitivities” over who takes the lead is delaying the process, according to one European diplomat.
“We are no further forward than when the Syrians left, although the needs have been known from the start,” the diplomat said.
What equipment has already arrived for the army is often transferred on an ad hoc basis without attention paid to the military’s needs. For example, Qatar recently sent Lebanon 100 military trucks. The trucks, however, were delivered equipped with desert tires, without windscreen wipers and without any spare parts. Around 20% of the trucks had to be cannibalized to keep the rest of the fleet on the road.
“The trucks were fitted for desert conditions. No one had thought about the needs of the Lebanese army. In the end it cost a lot of money to put those trucks on the road,” said a foreign military advisor.
Instead of one-off gifts of arms and equipment, the trend among military suppliers is “cradle-to-grave procurement,” in which a fleet of vehicles is sold along with a package that includes spare parts and workshops to ensure that the vehicles are properly maintained.
Furthermore, the army is looking to standardize equipment, ensuring, for example, that the army and the Internal Security Forces use the same communications system.
Greater allocation
The US Congress has significantly stepped up its financial allocations for the Lebanese military, reflecting Washington’s belief that a strong united army will help safeguard Lebanese stability. Some $10.6 million was allocated for fiscal year 2006 to be spent on repairs and spare parts for existing equipment. Further funds are expected before the end of the current fiscal year. Another $2 million was earmarked mainly for training troops and improving counter-terrorism techniques, some of it under the International Military Education Training (IMET) program, which has resumed after a hiatus during the years of Syrian domination of Lebanon. Some 120 student officers and NCOs have attended Ranger school in the US in the past year under the IMET program. American military teams are also training NCOs in Lebanon under four- to six-week programs.
Lurking in the shadows of the international interest in reforming the Lebanese army is the dreaded “H- word.” The unspoken inference is that a re-equipped, better-trained, more mobile national army will undercut the rationale behind Hizbullah’s argument that the Islamic Resistance is a vital component of Lebanon’s strategic defense.
“We want to be careful how the debate is framed,” said one Western diplomat. “If it’s suspected that this is a US-Zionist subterfuge then Hizbullah will use its veto to turn it off.”
But there is little doubt that undermining Hizbullah remains a powerful factor in the mainly Western interest in improving the Lebanese army’s capabilities.
In September, Steven Hadley, the US National Security Advisor, held a meeting in Washington with two senior advisors to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to brief them on Washington’s plans for the Lebanese army.
According to an account of the meeting reported by Israel’s Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, Hadley explained to the Israelis that a strengthened Lebanese army would bolster the Lebanese government against Hizbullah and other pro-Syrian elements in Lebanon, namely armed Palestinian groups. The Israelis reportedly agreed in principle with the US plan but voiced concern that some of the military hardware to be transferred to the Lebanese army could end up in Hizbullah’s hands.
