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Inside Israel

Olmert government braces for war report


By Stan Goodenough
April 29, 2007

Senior Israeli government officials are bracing for the release Monday of an investigative committee's findings on the execution of last summer's Second Lebanon War.

Most Israelis believe that Israel lost that war, which it waged against the Lebanese Hizb’allah after two IDF soldiers had been kidnapped by them.

Despite the huge amount of firepower that exchanged sides, and Israel’s clear military advantage over the Lebanese, the soldiers remain in captivity while Hizb’allah has replenished, and even increased its weaponry, and crows daily about its victory over the “Zionists.”

The Winograd Committee, which was appointed by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, is expected to level damning charges of incompetence and failure at Olmert, Minister of Defense Amir Peretz and now-resigned IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz.

Some of the committee's findings were leaked to an Israel television channel which broadcast them Saturday evening, sending aides to Olmert and Peretz into a damage-control frenzy.

Chief among the charges leveled at Olmert are that instead of leading the country into the war he decided to wage, he allowed himself to be led by the nose by his military staff, which included an unqualified defense minister and an arrogant chief of staff.

Some reports in Israel Sunday suggested that, once the findings are released, Olmert will be forced to resign as then-Prime Minister Golda Meir had to after the debacle of the Yom Kippur War.

The prime minister’s aides were adamant, Sunday, that he has no intention of throwing in the towel.

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