THE big powers are considering dispatching a rapid reaction force to Lebanon, to be followed by a larger international force as part of a political settlement, diplomats said.

The two-phase deployment was discussed at a private breakfast meeting yesterday between Kofi Annan, the United Nations Secretary-General, and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council — Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States.

Afterwards the UN announced that a crucial meeting of potential troop contributors — which had been cancelled on Monday — would now take place tomorrow.

A UN official said that the dispatch of a “lightning rapid reaction force” was under consideration.

Sir Emyr Jones Parry, Britain’s UN representative, said: “What I think is clear is [that there should be] an early cessation of hostilities. That needs to be on the basis of an understanding between the parties.

“There would then have to be deployment of some forces to try to secure the area concerned and give assurances to everybody and especially to deliver humanitarian aid.

“At some stage the framework for a longer-term political agreement needs to be put in place. I would envisage either at the same time as that discussion or as soon as that has been concluded that the international force would be fully deployed,” he explained.

France, considered a likely candidate to lead the multinational intervention, said yesterday that the force should be be 15,000-20,000 strong.

“It must be a very large international force with very precise missions. It must be well armed, have substantial firepower and armour.

“It must be credible and capable of making itself respected by everyone,” Michèle Alliot-Marie, the French Defence Minister, told Le Monde.

Dr Alliot-Marie said that the force must be larger than the current 2,000-strong UN Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) and the 10,000 that has been suggested by Mr Annan. “There is no question of it being a Unifil Mk II,” she said.

With France and the US vying to take the diplomatic lead, the UN chief summoned ambassadors from the five veto-bearing powers to breakfast at his residence to try to prevent a repeat of the splits over the 2003 Iraq war.

Paris had upstaged Washington by calling for an immediate ceasefire early in the fighting and took the rare step of tabling a draft UN resolution on Saturday, a day after Britain and America announced their intention to do so.

When Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, called off a trip to Lebanon after the Israeli airstrike that killed dozens in Qana, Philippe Douste-Blazy, the French Foreign Minister, went to Beirut himself.

He then met his Iranian counterpart, with whom Washington has no contact, in Beirut and praised Iran’s “important stabilising role in the region”.

French diplomats said that Monday’s troop contributor meeting at UN headquarters was called off after Paris decided to boycott it because it was being organised by the US, which does not intend to send ground troops.

Experts from the five permanent members of the Security Council were scheduled to hold more talks at the UN last night on France’s peace plan, which calls for an immediate ceasefire and the creation of a militia-free buffer zone south of the Litani river with the help of an international force.

Both Britain and the US were preparing amendments to the French plan, which could lead to days of negotiation.

A ministerial meeting of the 15-nation Security Council, once planned for this week, appeared to be receding to next week, diplomats said.

Mr Annan appealed to the Big Five powers to put their differences aside to approve an intervention force as soon as possible, UN officials said.

Mark Malloch Brown, the UN’s deputy SecretaryGeneral, last night told Mr Blair to take a back seat in Lebanon. “It’s not helpful for it again to appear to be the team that led on Iraq. This cannot be perceived as a US-UK deal with Israel,” he told the Financial Times.

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