"We want an end to violence, and we do not want escalations," White House spokesman Tony Snow said at a briefing at Crawford, Texas.

Snow said that a sticking point at the U.N. for the proposed Lebanon resolution is the deployment of an international force in southern Lebanon.

"We know at this point that we still have some work to do. We also know that the Lebanese army, while an absolutely essential part of any solution, is not itself independently capable of dealing with the problem -- at least not yet," Snow said.

Snow also acknowledged that it is impossible to know when the U.N. Security Council will be able to vote on the draft resolution on Lebanon, although the Bush administration has suggested that the draft resolution could be passed early this week.