Report: Israel had unrealistic goals in Lebanon war
Washington Post reports Military Intelligence warned Israeli politicians that goals set by government won't be achieved
Two days after the Lebanon war broke out the Military Intelligence unit warned that the military plan drafted by the IDF would not meet the government's goals of returning two soldiers kidnapped by Hizbullah and dealing Hizbullah a debilitating blow, the Washington Post reported.
On July 14, two day after the war broke out, the MI Research department filed a report warning that the military plan drafted by the IDF would only achieve "diminishing returns."
"The question we want to know to this day was why the military chose an option that had no exit strategy," a senior Foreign Ministry official who read the report told the Washington Post. "They never had one, as far as we could tell."
The paper said an examination of the first two days of fighting show that the government had no real strategy for ending the war and that ground troops were surprised how well-prepared Hizbullah was.
Former IDF Chief of Staff Lt. General (Res.) Dan Shomron was appointed last week to head a probe into the performance of Chief of Staff Dan Halutz and the general staff during the war in Lebanon. Shomron is expected to start in the next few days.
Halutz's request was presented to Shomron a few weeks ago, but because Shomron had been abroad and returned to Israel a few days ago, the matter was only finalized Tuesday. Shomron's investigation team will work alongside other teams recently appointed to investigate the war in Lebanon on all levels
Last month the government appointed Justice Eliyahu Winograd to head a probe into the political and military echelons failures in managing the war.
