An Arab-American group sued top Bush administration officials, claiming it bungled the evacuation from Lebanon of US nationals, leaving them vulnerable to the Israeli military offensive.

In their suit against US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld filed in a Detroit, Michigan federal court, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) asked the court to order the government to stop shipping weapons to Israel as long as US citizens remain in danger inside Lebanon.

"At no time has President (George W.) Bush, Secretary of State Rice, or Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld called for a ceasefire in Lebanon," said ADC president Mary Rose Oakar.

"To the contrary, the Bush administration has encouraged the violence by sending an urgent shipment of bombs to Israel, giving that country the green light to continue in its indiscriminate bombing of Lebanon," Oakar said in a statement.

"This has placed innocent civilians, including thousands of US citizens, in harm's way and has resulted in injuring several US citizens in Lebanon."

The suit, filed by the ADC and 34 Lebanese-Americans who have either left Lebanon or are trying still to get out, charges the government with violating their constitutional rights to protection with the much-criticized, slow evacuation of US nationals, and by aiding Israel's attacks, which threaten to harm US nationals.

The suit asks for an emergency court order to stop the US sending more weapons to Israel as long as US citizens are in danger in Lebanon.

It also asks that the court order Rice and Rumsfeld to seek a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah militia to enable US nationals to flee Lebanon, and to make better efforts to help them depart the country.

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