Last update - 00:00 05/11/2007
ANALYSIS: Winograd report to expose system failures, nothing personal
By Ze'ev Segal, Haaretz Correspondent
The Winograd Committee's response to the High Court of Justice on Sunday constitutes the first official announcement that its final report on the Second Lebanon War will include no personal findings, conclusions or recommendations.
The panel based this decision in part on its conclusion that the failures it uncovered stemmed from policies adopted by many different people over many years, as well as from "organizational cultures, society's ethos and the political culture," thus making it difficult to assign personal responsibility. It therefore decided to focus its final report instead on systemic problems. And since no individual will be hurt by its conclusions, it argued, there is no need to allow any individual to study the evidence or cross-examine witnesses, as such rights are traditionally accorded only to those who are liable to suffer personal harm from a probe.
The committee is relying on the precedent set by the Shamgar Commission, which investigated the 1994 shooting in Hebron's Tomb of the Patriarchs. That panel sent no warning letters, granted no individuals a right of response and published no personal conclusions or recommendations; like the Winograd Committee, it chose this route because it saw the shooting as stemming from the acts of many people over many years, and viewed its main task as making systemic recommendations in order to prevent a recurrence.
That stance is legitimate, though unusual: Most inquiry committees have issued personal conclusions as well as systemic ones, believing that personal conclusions are necessary to make it clear to the public just how seriously senior officials have deviated from proper norms of behavior.
But for the Winograd Committee, this stance presents a unique problem: The Commissions of Inquiry Law - whose principles the committee has accepted, though they do not formally apply - states that an individual can be denied a right of response only if "nothing in the investigation could harm him." But the Winograd Committee's partial report included scathing criticisms of several individuals; thus these individuals could legitimately argue that they have already been harmed. And even senior army officers who were not mentioned by name could still argue that the partial report's conclusions about the army's failures were damaging to them. The Shamgar Committee, in contrast, never issued a partial report.
Thus the question of whether senior officers have already been harmed by the partial report is likely to be at the heart of the court's decision on whether to require the committee to issue warning letters and to grant a right of response, as army defense attorneys are demanding.
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