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Israel wages lebanon war poorly says reservists { August 22 2006 }

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   http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/22/world/middleeast/22israel.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/22/world/middleeast/22israel.html

August 22, 2006
Aftermath
Reservists in Israel Protest Conduct of Lebanon War
By STEVEN ERLANGER

JERUSALEM, Aug. 21 — A group of Israeli reservist soldiers who served during the recent fighting in Lebanon, angry about the conduct of the war, on Monday demanded the resignations of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Amir Peretz and the army chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz.

The reservists, most of whom have gone back to civilian life, say that their training was inadequate and that they were sent into Lebanon with unclear missions, inadequate supplies, outdated equipment and a lack of basics, like drinking water. They called for a national inquiry into how the war was waged.

During a protest march, one of the participants, Roni Zwiegenboim of the Alexandroni Brigade, said, “Beyond the whole issue of the ammunition, the food and the water that wasn’t, the issue was that there was no leadership.” He added with disgust, “In the end it was just a mess, and it all starts at the top.”

The protest march of about 100 people went from Castel, the site of a 1948 battle, to Mr. Olmert’s house. It reflected considerable domestic angst about the uncertain outcome of the war, the fragility of the cease-fire, general skepticism about the ability of any United Nations force to control Hezbollah and the failure to reach stated goals, like the release of captured soldiers.

Protests by reservists, who are allowed to criticize the army freely, unlike enlisted men and women, helped lead to the fall of the Golda Meir government after the 1973 war, when an Egyptian attack took Israel by surprise.

This war with Hezbollah is not considered that kind of failure, though, and the growing criticism — including other recent protests — has not yet gathered enough momentum to shake the government.

Mr. Olmert and his new Kadima Party were just elected on March 28, and there is little appetite here for another round of voting. Kadima and the Labor Party are more likely to pull together to preserve their coalition, especially when the immediate beneficiaries of a breakup are likely to be on the right. But Mr. Olmert and Mr. Peretz have been badly weakened, and their main campaign promise, of a sweeping new withdrawal of settlers from the occupied West Bank, has been shelved for now.

Mr. Olmert told the cabinet on Sunday that the government’s priority should be to rebuild Israel’s north.

But the call for an investigation is finding an echo in Parliament. Mr. Olmert is trying to forestall such an inquiry, which might have legal powers to question him and other top officials.

During a visit on Monday to Kiryat Shmona, which was hit by almost one-quarter of the nearly 4,000 rockets fired into Israel by Hezbollah, Mr. Olmert said the point was to concentrate on the future. “I won’t be part of this game of self-flagellation,” he said. “I won’t be part of this game of slandering the army.”

Speaking of the Israel Defense Forces, Mr. Olmert said: “We have no other army. Who is the I.D.F.? It’s our children, it’s our brother, it’s our public, part of it in the regular army, part of it in the reserves. What are we going to do now? Stand them in a line and give them a slap on the face? Try them? Put them in front of commissions of inquiry each and every day, so they won’t be able to properly assess the next conflict because they will be afraid we shall come complaining to them?”

Mr. Olmert has asked his attorney general to come up with alternatives to a formal inquiry. A governmental investigation authorized by the cabinet, for example, could be better controlled by Mr. Olmert, even if outsiders are involved, and the cabinet could decide what is published.

Mr. Peretz, the defense minister, has been criticized for opening an inquiry into the army’s performance led by one of his own advisers, former Chief of Staff Amnon Lipkin-Shahak. The committee has begun to take testimony, but is expected to grant the army’s demand that such testimony be kept confidential.

Meanwhile, hundreds of reserve soldiers from the Alexandroni Brigade met Sunday with General Halutz, the army chief of staff, and told him there was a crisis of confidence in senior officers. He promised a thorough investigation.

In another protest, reservists from the Spearhead Paratroop Brigade complained in an open letter covered in Israeli newspapers on Monday that soldiers were prevented from winning the war because of poor leadership. They said that the war was marked by indecision and complained that their missions were repeatedly canceled. “This led to prolonged stays in hostile territory without an operational purpose,” the letter said.

“To us, the indecisiveness expressed deep disrespect for our willingness to join the ranks and fight and made us feel as though we had been spat at,” it said.

The letter, signed by several hundred reservists, also called for an inquiry into how the war was carried out.

Another kind of protest came Sunday from Brig. Gen. Yossi Hyman, who is leaving as commander of the Infantry Corps and Paratroops. “We were guilty of the sin of arrogance,” General Hyman said at his farewell ceremony. “Despite heroic fighting by the soldiers and commanders, especially at the company and battalion level, we all feel a certain sense of failure and missed opportunity.”

He said he took the blame for not preparing the infantry better and for not preventing “burnout among professional companies and platoons,” adding, “I feel no relief whatsoever in the face of the array of excuses.”

Mr. Olmert has rejected a suggestion from his public security minister, Avi Dichter, a former head of the domestic security service, that Israel pursue peace talks with Syria, a Hezbollah sponsor, even if it means giving up the Golan Heights, which Israel conquered in 1967.

Mr. Olmert said he favored negotiations, but not while the Syrian leader, Bashar al-Assad, continues to support groups that Israel and the United States label as terrorist organizations, like Hezbollah and Hamas.

“Before we negotiate with Syria, they should stop financing terror; before we negotiate with Bashar Assad, let him stop launching missiles by means of Hezbollah onto the heads of innocent Israelis,” Mr. Olmert said. “And before we sit down to negotiate, let them stop funding Hamas’s murder, sabotage and terror. If they meet all these tests we shall negotiate with them.”

Still, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said last week that she had picked Yaakov Dayan, formerly her chief of staff, to explore the idea that secular Syria might be pulled out of the orbit of Shiite Iran.

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company


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