Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2006 16:04:41 -0700 From: Jeffrey
Blankfort <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
"The IDF's failure is eroding our national security's
most important asset - the belligerent image of this
country, led by a vast, strong and advanced army
capable of dealing our enemies a decisive blow if
they even try to bother us. This war, it soon
transpired, was about "awareness" and "deterrence." We
lost the fight for both. " Reuven
Pedatzur
{comment - JB} Before his untimely death, the late
Professor Israel Shahak considered Reuven Pedatzur to
be one of the more astute observers of the Israeli
military scene. Notice that this is one the rare
articles from the Hebrew press, apart from articles by
Levy, Hass and other anti-zionists, in which the word
"terror" makes no appearance and in which Hizbollah is
not described as a "terrorist" organization.
{end}
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/750990.html Last
update - 03:06
16/08/2006
The Day After / How we suffered a knockout
By Reuven Pedatzur
The United States' defeat in the Vietnam war started
becoming evident
when Gen. William Westmoreland, commander of the U.S.
forces in
Vietnam, started using body counts as an alternative
to military
victories. When he could not point to achievements on
the battlefield,
Westmoreland would send a daily report to Washington
of the number of
Vietcong soldiers his forces had killed.
In the past few weeks, the Israel Defense Forces has
also adopted the
body count approach. When the largest and strongest
army in the Middle
East clashes for more than two weeks with 50 Hezbollah
fighters in Bint
Jbail and does not bring them to their knees, the
commanders are left
with no choice but to point to the number of dead
fighters the enemy
has left behind. It can be assumed that Bint Jbail
will turn into a
symbol of the second Lebanon war. For the Hezbollah
fighters it will be
remembered as their Stalingrad, and for us it will be
a painful
reminder of the IDF's defeat.
Ze'ev Schiff wrote in Haaretz on August 11 that we had
"gotten a slap."
It seems that "knockout" would be a more appropriate
description. This
is not a mere military defeat. This is a strategic
failure whose
far-reaching implications are still not clear. And
like the boxer who
took the blow, we are still lying dazed on the ground,
trying to
understand what happened to us. Just like the Six-Day
War led to a
strategic change in the Middle East and established
Israel's status as
the regional power, the second Lebanon war may bring
about the
opposite. The IDF's failure is eroding our national
security's most
important asset - the belligerent image of this
country, led by a vast,
strong and advanced army capable of dealing our
enemies a decisive blow
if they even try to bother us. This war, it soon
transpired, was about
"awareness" and "deterrence." We lost the fight for
both.
The concept failed again
It does not matter one bit what the IDF's true
capability is. There is
also no importance to the assertions that the IDF used
merely a small
part of its force and that its arsenal still contains
advanced weapons
that did not come into play. What really matters is
the image of the
IDF - and in fact of Israel - in the eyes of our
adversaries in the
region.
And herein lies the most serious failure of this war.
In Damascus,
Gaza, Tehran and Cairo, too, people are looking with
amazement at the
IDF that could not bring a tiny guerrilla organization
(1,500 fighters
according to the military intelligence chief, and a
few thousand
according to other sources) to its knees for more than
a month, the IDF
that was defeated and paid a heavy price in most of
its battles in
southern Lebanon. And most serious of all: an IDF that
has not
neutralized Hezbollah's ability to fire rockets and
keep more than 1
million Israeli citizens sitting in shelters for more
than four weeks.
What happened to this mighty army, which after a month
was not able to
advance more than a few kilometers into Lebanon?
wonder many of those
who are planning their next wars against Israel.
Israel's deterrent power was based on the recognition
by the enemy that
it would pay an extremely heavy price if it attacked
Israel. For
example, Syria has not fired hundreds of missiles at
the Israeli
homefront - even during times of war - because it
fears a harsh Israeli
attack on Damascus and other important Syrian towns.
But when more than
3,000 rockets are fired at the Galilee, Haifa and
Hadera without Israel
demanding that someone pay, Israel's deterrence is
damaged. At the next
opportunity, someone in Damascus may decide to fire
rockets at Tel Aviv
to push forward a diplomatic process, since Israel did
not only fail to
react severely to the rockets fired from Lebanon but
also was forced to
agree to a UN arrangement that leaves the rocket
stockpile in
Hezbollah's hands.
The Agranat Commission gave a negative connotation to
the term
"concept" in the context of military intelligence. The
commission of
inquiry that now hopefully will be set up will quickly
conclude that on
the eve of the second Lebanon war, the IDF - and
consequently policy
makers - were working with two mistaken concepts.
First, over the past
six years, Israelis came to believe a large-scale
fight against
Hezbollah would not be necessary: Any military actions
in southern
Lebanon would be limited and short. Second, if a war
arose against
Hezbollah, the IDF would dismantle the organization
within a few days,
break its command backbone and end the fighting under
conditions
favorable to Israel.
And this is how we entered the war. The army led the
prime minister and
his cabinet to believe that the air force would
annihilate Hezbollah's
fighting capability within several days and that
thereafter a new
situation would prevail in Lebanon. On the basis of
these promises,
Ehud Olmert set ambitious objectives for the war,
which of course were
unattainable.
Just as before the Yom Kippur war, there was a
destructive combination
of arrogance, boastfulness, euphoria and contempt for
the enemy. The
generals were so certain of the air force's success
that they did not
prepare an alternative. And when it became clear after
about one week
that Hezbollah was not disintegrating and that its
ability to fire
rockets had not been significantly thwarted, the IDF
found itself in a
state of acute distress and embarrassment. This is the
reason for the
hesitancy in using force and the lack of determination
in the use of
the ground forces.
The commission of inquiry will have to examine how the
army entered the
war without formulating alternative operations or
plans to end the war.
The failure of the government lies in its adoption of
the army's
proposal without examining its logic, chances of
success or
alternatives. The decision-making process that led to
the war once
again revealed the most serious defect in the
formation of national
security policy. Since the establishment of the state,
no government
has had the good sense to set up professional advisory
bodies that
could assist it in dealing with IDF proposals, or at
least to examine
them seriously. As in all the other conflicts, the
army and not the
government decided what Israel should do in Lebanon.
The National
Security Council - whose job this is precisely - was
not asked to look
over the IDF's plans and their implications, nor was
it asked to
provide alternatives.
The missing command
The arrogance and the overconfidence that
characterized the top brass
left the home front unprotected. If it was clear that
the air force
would destroy the rocket launch pads within a few
days, why call on the
residents of the north to prepare the air raid
shelters and stockpile
food? We know the outcome: More than one million
people sat for more
than one month in stinking shelters, some of them
without food or
minimal conditions.
In this context, the inquiry commission should look
into the home front
command. Millions of shekels were invested in this
command. A major
general, brigadiers general, colonels and many other
officers and
soldiers man this command. And what was its
contribution to the war?
Warning notices broadcast over the radio and
televisions about alarms
and sirens. That's it. For more than a month, the
entire command made
do with drafting public notices about seeking shelter
and staying in
interior rooms. Where was this command over the past
six years? Was it
not its task to examine and check whether the shelters
were
satisfactory?
And of course, the intelligence. Once again there were
surprises and
failures, some of which were based on the mistaken
concept of
Hezbollah's capacities. The militia's success in
surprising an IDF
patrol and abducting two soldiers - the catalyst for
the war - stems
from a military intelligence failure. IDF intelligence
did not assess
correctly Hezbollah's fighting capability, did not
know about the
tunnels next to the organization's strongholds, and
erred in its
assessments of the deployment inside Bint Jbail, and
there were many
more other intelligence failures.
The navy's intelligence failed because it did not know
about the
Iranian land-to-sea missiles in Hezbollah's hands, and
its assessments
about Hezbollah's ability to fire rockets were
mistaken. Hezbollah's
successful handling of anti-tank missiles also
revealed an intelligence
failure that resembles to a large extent that of the
1973 war. The
Patriot missile batteries stationed near Haifa and
Safed were announced
by the IDF with much fanfare. The wide media coverage
given to these
deployments was supposed to quiet residents' fears.
Since then we have
not heard a single word about that wonderful defense
system. As far as
is known, not even one attempt was made to knock down
missiles fired at
Haifa and Hadera. The commission of inquiry will also
have to deal with
the army's decisions about anti-missile defense.
Billions of dollars
were invested in the defense systems to combat
missiles, but this was
unapparent when it came to the test. In addition, the
army's decision
to stop developing the Nautilus - a laser-based
anti-Katyusha defense
system - must be examined.
The state allocates some 11 billion dollars annually
for the defense
budget. Almost 15 percent of the GNP is devoted to
security. (The
official figure is 10 percent, but this does not
include all the
investments in security issues). But when the
reservists are called up,
they discover that they lack basic equipment: flak
jackets, helmets,
vehicles and even stretchers. Entire units were forced
to fight more
than 24 hours without food or water. Where did the
money go? This will
have to be examined by the commission of inquiry. The
height of the
chutzpah is the hints by senior officers that the
dearth of equipment
is due to the defense budget cuts. This should be the
chance to break
the myth about these budget cuts: Not only was the
defense budget not
cut in the past decade, it actually grew during the
years 2002 and
2005. Israel allocates to security more of its total
resources than any
other democracy in the world (15 times more than Japan
and three times
more than the U.S.). It should be checked whether
there is
justification for this.
The Yom Kippur war is remembered as a seminal event
that damaged the
public's trust in the army. Quite a few years passed
before this trust
was restored. It is still too early to assess whether
the second
Lebanon war will be remembered as the turning point at
which the public
awakes from the illusion about the unlimited might of
the Israeli
military force.
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