Lebanese authorities have put the cost of the Israeli blitz at 3.5 billion dollars in damage to infrastructure alone. (Reuters)

WASHINGTON — Rushing to counter Hizbullah efforts to rebuild Lebanon after the devastating Israeli offensive, the Bush administration is trying to step up aid to the tiny Arab country and is encouraging Arab countries to follow suit.

"These guys (Hizbullah) are out there with their own bulldozers and what are we doing? It takes forever for us to start up rebuilding projects," a senior State Department official told Reuters Friday, August 18, on condition of anonymity.

Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah vowed on August 15 that his group will rebuild 15,000 homes demolished by the Israeli military juggernaut and house hundreds of thousands of civilians displaced by the Israeli offensive.

The pledge came hours after a UN-brokered truce took effect, halting the five-week Israeli onslaught in Lebanon, which killed up to 1,200 Lebanese civilians.

The US official said the administration is "cracking the whip" on Lebanon's rebuilding efforts in a bid to deprive Hizbullah from winning more support among the local population.

He, however, said it was not yet clear how much Washington would contribute to the rebuilding.

The Bush administration has pledged $50 million to humanitarian aid in Lebanon, half of which has been handed out to aid groups working there.

The US administration has drawn fire for long resisting calls for an immediate ceasefire in the relentless Israeli offensive, saying that it should be put off until "the conditions are conducive."

The US made no secret that it shipped laser-guided bombs and cluster ammunition to Tel Aviv at an Israeli request.

The savaged Israeli bombardment, which left Lebanon's hard-won infrastructure in tatters, has displaced nearly one million civilians.

Award-winning American investigative reporter Seymour Hersh revealed that Israel had devised a plan for attacking Hizbullah and shared it with the Bush administration officials well before the resistance group took prisoner two Israeli soldiers.

US Bureaucracy

Bill Garvelink, a senior US aid agency official, said that the US near-term efforts will focus on helping rebuild damaged homes in Lebanon, adding that American engineers were in Lebanon assessing damage to bridge and roads.

But US officials said that the American bureaucracy was hindering the US aid efforts from taking the lead from Hizbullah.

"We have been delivering stuff from the beginning (of the conflict) but we need to get something much more substantial on the ground," the official said.

Any large-scale US-funded rebuilding effort could take months, just as it did in Iraq where the Bush administration's efforts are still faltering.

The Bush administration is also pushing Arab countries like Saudi Arabia to deliver aid fast to southern Lebanon.

Saudi Arabia has committed half-a-billion dollars to humanitarian relief and promised another billion for rebuilding.

The United Arab Emirates on Friday, August 18, pledged to fund the reconstruction of schools and hospitals in south Lebanon.

The reconstruction program would cover hospitals in the towns of Bint Jbeil and Marjayun as well as in the Arkoub region.

The UAE already pledged 20 million dollars in relief aid last month for the nearly one million people displaced by the Israeli offensive.

Lebanese authorities have put the cost of the Israeli blitz at 3.5 billion dollars in damage to infrastructure alone without counting lost revenues from tourism and other economic activity.

A donors' conference on humanitarian aid is scheduled for August 31 in Stockholm, Sweden, on Lebanon.