Washington Report, February 21, 1983, Page 5

Facts For Your Files: A Chronology of U.S.-Middle East Relations

February 3:

Deputy Assistant Secretary of State James Devine announced that the U.S. is resuming its participation in the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency after having withdrawn from it last September, when Israel's credentials were rejected. He said the Agency is "critical to our national security interests."

February 4:

At a news conference President Reagan defended the action taken in Lebanon by a U.S. marine who stopped three Israeli tanks from approaching U.S. positions by announcing they would have to "kill" him in order to advance any further: "In my view, the marine officer did the only thing he could do." The President added: "I think our forces (in Lebanon) are behaving very well."

February 4:

State Department spokesman Alan Romberg reported agreement with Israel on a demarcation line to be established in the area where a U.S. marine confronted Israeli tanks on Feb. 2. "It's a line beyond which it has been agreed that the Israelis may not, and have agreed that they will not go." He added that under the agreement the "incident area" is "within the marine area of operations."

February 4:

The Administration made public its fiscal 1984 international security assistance budget request for $9.143 billion. The Administration also requested $962.5 million in 1983 supplemental foreign aid funds, including an additional $241 million for Lebanon.

February 7:

President Reagan told television reporters that "Israel is delaying, we believe, unnecessarily (from withdrawing from Lebanon) ... they (the Israelis) are there by force in this country that has said to them, 'We now want you to depart."'

February 8:

State Department spokesman Alan Romberg said—in reference to the report released by the Israeli inquiry commission on the Beirut massacre, which led to the removal of Ariel Sharon as Defense Minister—"We don't see why the impact of this report, whatever that may be, should affect the Lebanon negotiations or the current Habib mission" to implement President Reagan's Mideast peace proposals.

February 9:

Responding to a report that Lebanon's Prime Minister Shafiq al-Wazzan had written guarantees and assurances from the Syrians and the PLO that they would "withdraw totally" from Lebanon at the appropriate time, State Department spokesman Alan Romberg said: "It's our understanding that they (the Syrians and PLO) would be willing to withdraw totally."

February 9:

Administration officials said that Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger had rejected a proposed agreement between the U.S. and Israel under which Israel would have provided military information acquired from its war in Lebanon last summer. An initial draft of the accord was signed last Nov. 25 by the Pentagon's Director of Net Assessment, Andrew Marshall, and Israel's Defense Minister at the time, Ariel Sharon.

February 16:

President Reagan said that the U.S. had dispatched four AWACS surveillance planes to Egypt in a move that Administration officials said later was a warning to Libya not to move military against any of its neighbors. The action came amid fears in the Administration that Libya may be preparing to attack Sudan.