WASHINGTON - The U.S. Navy has moved the guided-missile destroyer USS Cole and other ships to the eastern Mediterranean Sea off Lebanon, Pentagon officials said Thursday.

The deployment comes amid a political standoff over Lebanon's presidency, but the Navy would not say whether the events are linked.

"It's a group of ships that will operate in the vicinity for a while and as the ships in our Navy do, the presence is important," Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Thursday.

"It isn't meant to send any stronger signal than that," he said. "But it does signal that we're engaged and we are going to be in the vicinity, and that's a very important part of the world."

The Cole was badly damaged by an al Qaeda bombing during a port call in Yemen in 2000, killing 17 sailors. It returned to service in 2002.

The destroyer and two support ships are close to Lebanon but out of visual range of the coast, Pentagon officials said. Another six vessels, led by the amphibious assault ship USS Nassau, are close to Italy and steaming toward the other three, the officials said.

Mullen would not say whether the deployment has anything to do with the upcoming Lebanese parliamentary vote on a new president, which was postponed for a 15th time earlier this week. But he said the vote was "important," and Washington was waiting for it to take place.

Don't Miss U.S. extends sanctions against Syria Syria, Iran to probe militant's death World watching U.S. presidential race And a Bush administration official told CNN the decision to move ships to the region was a message to neighboringSyria that "the U.S. is concerned about the situation in Lebanon, and we want to see the situation resolved."

"We are sending a clear message for the need for stability," said the official, who was not authorized to speak for publication. The ships "should be there a while," the official added.

Lebanon's pro-Western majority in parliament and the pro-Syrian opposition have battled for power over the last three years. The country has been without a president since November, when pro-Syrian leader Emile Lahoud's term expired and parliament was unable to agree on a replacement.

Despite general agreement among the factions to award the post to army chief Gen. Michel Suleiman, disagreements over how to share power in a future Cabinet have kept the issue from coming up for a vote.

Parliament speaker Nabih Berri's office announced Tuesday that the next planned session has been pushed back to March 11. Berri's office said the Arab League needed more time to break the deadlock.

Lebanon has been wracked by a sometimes-violent power struggle since the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, whose supporters blamed Damascus for his killing. The resulting outcry eventually drove Syrian forces out of Lebanon, where they had been stationed since the 1970s.

The U.S. Sixth Fleet, whose area of operations includes the entire Mediterranean, is based at Naples, Italy.

The decision to send the ships appeared to be a not-too-subtle show of U.S. force in the region as international frustration mounts over a long political deadlock in tiny, weak Lebanon. The U.S. blames Syria for the impasse, saying Syria has never given up its ambitions to control its smaller neighbor.

The presidential election in Lebanon has been delayed 15 times. Just this week the date was pushed back to March 11.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is scheduled to visit the Middle East next week.

Mustafa Alloush, a member of the Lebanese Parliament from the U.S.-backed majority, told the majority's Future television that neither the government nor the anti-Syrian majority had any links to the dispatching of the Cole.

"But we remind what caused the situation to bring the American equation into the arena," he said, blaming Syria indirectly for inviting such American intervention. "It (the deployment) could be aimed directly at Syria or a declaration by the United States of America that it could be part of this equation that could develop if conditions remain the way they are," Alloush said.

The Cole was rebuilt after nearly being sunk in a terrorist attack in Aden, Yemen, in October 2000. It was recommissioned in April 2002 and went on its first post-attack deployment in November 2003.

National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said the deployment of the Cole is meant as "a show of support for regional stability." He added that President Bush is concerned about the situation in Lebanon.

The Cole, whose homeport is Norfolk, Va., is sailing to the region from Malta. -Agencies