The Winograd Committee's partial report, which was published about six months ago, should have been enough to bring about the prime minister's resignation: In unequivocal terms, the committee declared that he failed in every aspect of the Second Lebanon War's conduct, and that he bears full responsibility for this.
But in Israel's political culture, in which refusing to take responsibility has become the norm, these clear, harsh statements were insufficient to cause Ehud Olmert to resign, even though anyone who rereads the report, which is available on the Winograd Committee's official Web site, will discover that its findings are still shocking months later.
Regardless of whether the committee's final report includes personal conclusions and recommendations or makes do with systemic conclusions, no one but Olmert bears responsibility for the war.
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Unless the final report completely overturns the interim report's conclusions and reveals new facts that cast the interim conclusions in a different light, the prime minister should draw the only possible conclusion, despite the time that has passed.
The partial Winograd report clearly established that the entire government had failed, but it stressed the responsibility of the man who heads it.
Olmert went to war without taking his lack of expertise into account, without examining whether plans or alternatives existed and without setting goals, and he then managed the campaign on the fly.
The committee also viewed the lack of coordination between the government and the army as a serious failure. In sum, it stated that in every area it examined, it discovered a lack of caution, responsibility and judgment.
When it comes to the political and military leadership, it is hard to find graver accusations than these. And indeed, most of those involved in the war have already either gone home or been sent home, even though the committee did not recommend this explicitly. Olmert, in contrast, received a new lease on life from the new leader of the Labor Party, Ehud Barak, who decided to wait for publication of the final report before demanding the prime minister's resignation.
To expect the Winograd Committee to demand the prime minister's departure, instead of the political system, and Olmert as its leader, drawing the necessary conclusions for themselves, is unrealistic.
That is not how the committee sees its role. The stampede to the High Court of Justice, in the hope that it would save those responsible for the war and spare them the need to assume the responsibility that stems from the very nature of their jobs, is also astounding - especially since this is a government that usually complains about the court's excessive intervention.
The Winograd Committee will give the public an authoritative account of the Second Lebanon War: It has heard the testimony and scrutinized the documents, and to this day, no one has cast doubts on its integrity and skill.
Granted, the panel promised the court that it would enable anyone liable to be harmed by its final report to plead his case before it and examine the evidence.
Nevertheless, we must hope that it will find a way to avoid either submitting a superficial and pointless report, on one hand, or being dragged into the cross-examination of witnesses, on the other. As for the question of responsibility - that was already settled in the interim report
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