State Comptroller's report paints bleak picture of IDF

The IDF did not have an accurate view of the military's field units' readiness prior to the Second Lebanon War, states State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss in his annual report, made public Monday.

According to the report, the IDF began a tri-annual live-fire training cycle in 2004, after failing to comply with its previous bi-annual and annual training cycles. As a result, entire regiments had no more than one live-fire training session in the course of four-to-five years.

Many regiment commanders, said Lindenstrauss in his report, failed to complete their advanced studies, and some were reassigned before completing a two-year term, which is the minimum requirement. Given the poor state of live-fire drills, many regiment commanders were reassigned before taking part in any full-scale regiment drill.

The IDF, said the report, failed to determine whether or not reserve units could be adequately trained within the tri-annual training cycles, further failing to call the reserve units for training when the war began.

In 2005, revealed the report, much of the medical supplies available to the reserve units expired. The budget needed to restock – some $1.27 million – was not approved until 2006. Furthermore, by the end of 2006, only 65% of the emergency anti-atomic, biological and chemical equipment was in working order.

In August 2006, the IDF began the two-year process of reintroducing revamped armored vehicles into the service. Some 50% of the vehicles in service now are prone to malfunction and, according to Lindenstrauss, "there is a real concern that should a war break out before the process is completed, the number of inadequate vehicles will be greater than it was prior to the Second Lebanon War."

The Defense Ministry, said the report, hoped to circumvent the ammunition deficiencies which were discovered during the war by rushing acquisitions. An IDF inquiry revealed that many of the contracts were not supplied on time or in full.

The media wars

Lindenstrauss slammed the "endless red tape" which characterized the actions of the various civil authorities during the war, as well as the fact that the national information and PR responsibilities in relation to the war's ongoings were handled by the cabinet secretary.

"The vacuum created caused the IDF, which naturally holds a military-security point of view, to take over strategizing the war's PR for the State," he said.

According to the report, the Prime Minister's Office failed to handle the locally-based foreign media. Lindenstrauss attributes this failure to the PMO's choice not to have a wartime media center, as well as to the fact that it had no apparent strategy on how to handle the media in general.

Lindenstrauss' report found fault in the Home Front Command as well, citing a multitude of failures on its part, including a lack of updated information available to the public and a lack of material aimed at the Arab-speaking public.

The IDF Spokesperson's Unit was not left unscathed: Lindenstrauss faults the unit, among other things, for not having clear procedures available for the reports embedded to combat units.

The IDF, he said, did not understand the full meaning of its own "open yet controlled" information strategy: the military censor's office was not properly equipped to deal with this strategy, or with the "ever growing technological advances in the media," resulting in too much classified information being made available to the media.

"The recommendations made to the government were implemented in full and it has formed the National Emergency Administration," the Prime Minister's Office told Ynet.

A statement by the army's spokesperson said that "the IDF welcomes the government's decision to form the National Emergency Administration and has made the necessary arrangement to take an active part in it.

"As for the nature of information made available to the media during the war, the military has begun implementing new field-security procedures… the military's reserve units are undergoing unprecedented training drills and a perennial plan to keep them war-ready has been put in place.

"Furthermore, the military's emergency inventory has been updated to meet all and every need that may arise," said the statement.

Numerous failures all around

The State Comptroller went on to find numerous defects in the IDF's academic officers' training, saying about 25% of all academic officers were not assigned duties relevant to their training.

The IDF's rehabilitation branch was faulted for its red tape as well: the medical review board has a six-week waiting period and 10.5% of all claims take over a year to process.

"The IDF takes the State Comptroller's remarks on both matters very seriously," added the spokesman's statement. "The relevant changed will be taken under advisement."

Lindenstrauss examined the sale of Israel Military Industries' (IMI) Magen factory – which manufactures small arms – and determined that the sale did not yield the expected profit due to plant's failure to mass produce the Tavor rifle.

Later in the report, Lindenstrauss looked into the evacuation the Gaza Coast Regional Council, during the 2005 Gaza pullout. The Disengagement Authority, he stated, failed to protect the assets left behind: many were under the impression that assets left on council grounds were to be destroyed, and so they helped themselves to what was essentially government property.

The IDF, the Disengagement Authority and the government did nothing to minimize the State's loss. "Many assets in the Gaza Coast Regional Council came undone or were lost during transportation," the Disengagement Authority told Ynet. "As for other lost assets, we filed the necessary police reports at the time."