Israel Resource Review |
25th January, 2007 |
Contents:
THE WAR ACCORDING TO HALUTZ
Amir Rappaport and Hen Kotts-Bar
Correspondents, Ma'ariv
The IDF never recommended to the political echelon to launch an all out war against Hizbullah in wake of the kidnapping of soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and
Eldad Regev on the Lebanese border on July 12 this year. After the
kidnapping, the political echelon was shown a series of options and
Defense Minister Amir Peretz is the one who pushed for the most powerful
aerial response, which necessarily led to war. That is the version that
Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz is expected to present this Sunday
when he gives his testimony to the Winograd Committee.
Halutz's testimony is part of the series of testimonies of the key
position holders, which ends the stage of taking testimony at the
Winograd Committee. The committee will weigh submitting letters of
caution afterwards, and within a few weeks, an initial interim report is
expected.
Since the committee began to work, dozens of witnesses have appeared
before it. The stage of testimonies went into the last stretch on
Wednesday, when Foreign Minister Tzippi Livni appeared before the
committee. On Thursday Defense Minister Amir Peretz and members of his
team gave testimony that lasted about four and a half hours. After the
crucial testimony that Halutz gives on Sunday, Deputy Chief of Staff
Maj. Gen. Moshe Kaplinski and the OC Northern Command during the war
Maj. Gen. Udi Adam are expected to testify. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert
will testify a week later.
Prior to the testimonies that may affect their future, most of the
key position holders are consulting closely with lawyers. Defense
Minister Amir Peretz, for example, received advice from a battery of
lawyers, the most prominent of which is top lawyer Attorney Yaakov
Weinroth and Col. (res.) Attorney Rami Boblil, who fills in for the
chief military defense counsel in reserves. For a week, the minister and
his team, together with the lawyers, went through piles of documents
from the war and analyzed them. Peretz claimed to the committee that he
had influence over how the war was conducted, and that his contribution
was positive.
In contrast to Peretz, outgoing Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz
claims that he refuses on principle to be assisted by lawyers, although
top IDF leaders are convinced that he will consult at length before his
testimony with some of his close friends who are lawyers. Halutz's
testimony is considered very important: witnesses who appeared before
the committee received the impression that some of the members have
marked the chief of staff and are focusing their questions on the
decision-making processes that he led during the war. This message was
relayed to Halutz before he announced his resignation.
The investigative committee is meant to address three main issues:
the preparations made for the war in the north in the six years prior to
the war, the way the decision was made to go to war, and the way in
which it was conducted-both by the IDF leadership as well as by the
political echelon.
As for the conduct of the war, Halutz's situation is very tough. Top
officers claimed in their testimony that the political echelon gave him
nearly a free hand and that he made a series of erroneous decisions
alone, without really consulting the IDF General Staff. They also said
that Halutz was firmly opposed to an extensive ground operation, and for
a long time stuck to the preconception that the war would be decided
from the air. When he eventually recommended an extensive ground
operation, it was too late.
But the most dramatic development expected on Sunday, with Halutz's
testimony, has to do with the question of how the decision was made to
go to war.
The Thought Forum
From testimonies that reached Ma'ariv, it transpires that the most
crucial discussion in the IDF on the war was held on Wednesday, July 12,
in the noon hours, about four hours after the kidnapping. This was when
the "thought forum" headed by Halutz met in the meeting room in the
chief of staff's bureau, to examine, for the first time, the possible
options of response.
Attending, in addition to Halutz, were his deputy Moshe Kaplinski, OC
Northern Command Maj. Gen. Eizenkot, Operations Brigade Director Brig.
Gen. Sammy Turjeman, Director of Military Intelligence Maj. Gen. Amos
Yadlin, IDF Intelligence Research Department Director Brig. Gen. Yossi
Baidatz, Director of the Planning Branch Maj. Gen. Yitzhak Harel,
Director of the Strategic Planning and International Cooperation
Division Brig. Gen. Udi Dekel, IAF Commander Maj. Gen. Eliezer Shkedi
and other top officers. The atmosphere was heavy. It was clear to all
those attending that Israel had to respond harshly. The question was
how.
A number of possibilities were raised at the meeting. One was to
carry out a contingency plan of the IDF in case of war against Hizbullah
known as "Mei Merom." This plan was based on a large ground operation of
a number of divisions in order to take over the Katyusha rocket
launching grounds, in parallel with Air Force activity, which would
attack Hizbullah centers in the Lebanese home front. However, the top
IDF leadership did not want a large ground operation.
Another plan that was brought out, which had been formulated over the
years, was a parallel attack on dozens of Fajr missile launchers that
Hizbullah had hidden inside the houses of people throughout southern
Lebanon. It was feared that if these launchers were attacked, about 200
Lebanese civilians would be killed, something that would lead to
international pressure on Israel and to Hizbullah rocket fire at all of
northern Israel.
A third option was to be satisfied with an attack on Hizbullah
targets deep inside Lebanon, an attack on infrastructure targets such as
bridges and the international airport in Beirut. According to this plan,
after the initial attack, Israel would freeze its actions and would pose
a list of demands to the Lebanese government, threatening to renew the
attacks if the demands were not met.
At the end of the tense meeting, it was decided unequivocally to
recommend an attack on infrastructure targets such as bridges and the
airport (on the grounds that this is meant to prevent the kidnapped
soldiers from being smuggled out) and an attack on the palace. However,
there was no recommendation to attack the Fajrs, and it was decided to
raise the matter for the political echelon to decide without giving a
recommendation. IDF officials believed that if Israel did not attack the
Fajrs, Hizbullah would not necessarily respond with rocket fire at
northern Israel. In this case, Israel could consider its next steps
based on the response of the Lebanese government and of Hizbullah.
Why, despite this, did Israel attack the Fajrs and embark on an
attack on Hizbullah? According to the IDF version, the various options
that were raised at the "thought forum" were presented to Defense
Minister Amir Peretz and he decided that the plan to attack the
launchers be carried out. At the security consult headed by Peretz, say
the testimonies, he said "those who go to bed with missiles won't wake
up," and therefore, he recommended to the security cabinet that met that
evening on July 12, to attack the Fajrs.
The defense minister presented the plan at the cabinet meeting to
attack the Fajrs in the heart of civilian population centers as the
security establishment's recommendation. At the meeting with the
ministers, Eizenkot and Yadlin presented the plan by means of a
computerized display. The chief of staff said at the meeting that Israel
is about to come under a harsh rocket attack. In the course of the
meeting, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert became convinced of Defense Minister
Peretz's position. The decision to launch a large attack passed
unanimously.
Immediately after the security cabinet meeting, which was held in the
Prime Minister's Bureau in the Kirya in Tel Aviv, Chief of Staff Lt.
Gen. Dan Halutz convened the "thought forum" and updated it that the
government had decided to carry out the plan to attack the launchers.
The generals received the impression that same night that the defense
minister and the prime minister, who lacked any security experience,
did not really understand the significance of the far reaching decisions
they had made.
Based on the security cabinet's decision, the IDF issued war command
number one, in which the following goals were described:
1 - to enhance deterrence
2 - to exact a price (for the kidnapping)
3 - to set an orderly process for the Lebanese government to take
security responsibility over southern Lebanon based on UN Resolution
1559 and step up international and internal pressure to disarm
Hizbullah.
4 - to reduce the Hizbullah threat to the home front and decrease its
readiness to carry out its threats
5 - to have Hizbullah not reman its positions in southern Lebanon
6 - to create conditions to return the kidnapped soldiers
7 - to avoid a large-scale war, not carry out the "Mei Merom" plan
8 - to avoid a regional deterioration. Leave Syria outside the
fighting.
In contrast to this order, the prime minister declared in the first
days of the war that the goals are disarming Hizbullah and bringing the
kidnapped soldiers home.
Sources close to Peretz confirmed recently that he is the one who
pushed to carry out the plan to attack the Fajrs, and he is even proud
of it.
Halutz is expected to back up his testimony with documents and
protocols. His version could provide a possible explanation to the
things he said after Ma'ariv's revealed that he ordered his stock
portfolio to be sold on the morning of the kidnapping, that he didn't
know war was about to erupt. Halutz refuses to cooperate with the media
and to comment at all on his testimony.
Top IDF officials who related to what was written here, find it hard
to assess what would have happened if Amir Peretz had not pushed to
attack the Fajrs already on the first night of the war and if the IDF
had been sent to carry out more limited attacks. "It could be that after
Lebanon's response, we would have reached the conclusion that there was
no point in an overall war," they say. "On the other hand, it could be
that the Fajrs would have been attacked a day or two later." One close
adviser to Peretz during the war contends: "In retrospect, it is clear
to me that the defense minister fully understood the significance of the
decisions he made by a critical gap of a week later."
Amir Peretz's bureau commented last night "the defense minister
worked in full coordination with all the ranks, the military and the
political. The decisions were made based on judgment and on operational
plans and on the options that were presented to him and to the political
echelon. The defense minister only comments on these subjects in the
proper forums in the Defense Ministry."
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