The stinging critique, published this afternoon, isn't an excerpt from former CIA chief George Tenet’s “accusatory, defensive and moderately self-critical” book on the origins of the Iraq War. Nor does it come from any of the juicily-named books that have covered the same ground in recent years – Fiasco, Hubris, Cobra II, or State of Denial.
In fact, it comes from an official governmental report, commissioned by law and authored by highly respected former government officials. Not the Iraq Study Group Report – with all due respect to “the situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating,” this new, no-punches-pulled report makes the Baker Commission Report sound like a cross between a United Nations resolution and an invitation to a croquet party.
So what is this mysterious report?
The truth is, I fudged the quote a little. The original read not “The President,” but “The Prime Minister.” The quote – along with many, many equally juicy ones – comes from the preliminary report of the Winograd Commission, charged by the Israeli government with investigating the events of the month-long 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah (now commonly called in Israel the Second Lebanon War). The Prime Minister in question is Ehud Olmert, who formally received the report from the members of the commission this afternoon, shortly before its publication.
The Winograd Commission is even harsher, if possible, on Defense Minister Amir Peretz, finding that “the Minister of Defense did not possess knowledge and experience with political, military or governmental matters. He also did not possess a good familiarity with the fundamentals of the use of military force as a tool for achieving objectives. In spite of this he made his decisions without consulting with those who did possess experience.” Former Chief of Staff Dan Halutz, in turn, gets labeled as
“impulsive,” among many other criticisms.
The full, preliminary report is 171 pages long, in Hebrew, stretching back in its scope to the immediate aftermath of Israel’s May 2000 withdrawal from southern
Lebanon and including an hour-by-hour examination of the first few days of last summer’s hostilities. I have to confess that even aside from the whole day job thing, it’s going to take me a while to sort through the important bits. I’ll try to get back to you, DANGER ROOM readers, later in the week with more highlights and analysis.
What I want to emphasize right now, though, is how vastly different this report is from anything that’s been seen in the U.S. Less than a year has passed since the events described, the same people who were running the country then are still in power (only the Chief of Staff got the axe) – and yet already a harsh, detailed, scathingly public review of the government’s actions has been produced.
This report is expected to serve not only as a collective report card for Israel’s military leadership, but as a highly personalized one: personnel decisions in the General Staff have been effectively frozen pending the results of the Commission. The Baker boys, by contrast, famously felt that even their statement that “our political leaders must build a bipartisan approach to bring a responsible conclusion to what is now a lengthy and costly war” was inflammatory enough to warrant holding off publication till after Election Day.
This is not the first time that the Israeli government has allowed itself to be scrutinized by a similar commission. Past commissions have destroyed the careers of Prime Ministers and sent prominent political careers into 18-year hiatuses.
The real question is – is this good for a democracy perennially under threat? Which do you think is more of a threat, DANGER ROOM
readers – impunity, or compulsive self-criticism?
