This past week's developments in the saga of the Winograd Committee appear to signal another victory for the prime minister. Ehud Olmert has been playing the whole thing like a brilliant chess master, and so far, at least, also seems to be enjoying a certain amount of luck. After Olmert somehow survived its interim report, in April - the most scathing document of its kind ever to be written about an Israeli prime minister - the committee has been maneuvered into a corner from which at present it doesn't appear to have a way out.
The committee has to send warning letters to those liable to be affected by its findings? That will only mark the start of a process that postpones publication of the final report by many months, maybe even a year. Olmert, of course, only benefits. The committee releases an expedited report, devoid of findings about any specific individual? Olmert wins again. Could such a report do him any more harm than the interim findings, which already featured dozens of variations on the Hebrew root for the word "failure"?
Any way you look at it, it seems that Olmert is the going to be the one to say "checkmate." And the beauty of it is that all the work is being done by others. The body that actually pushed the committee into its present trap was the office of the military advocate general, representing the senior officers, not the prime minister. Still, some anxious voices could be heard this week in Olmert's circle. Some of his close associates worried that too big a victory for the prime minister in this instance could backfire by stirring up more criticism about his wily ploys and only heighten the public's displeasure with him.
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What upset the military advocate general's office this week? First of all, the committee's recent leak of its intention to issue a report very soon that won't include findings vis-a-vis specific individuals ostensibly stands in direct contradiction to a pledge it made to the High Court of Justice in early September. The committee promised then to give prior warning to anyone who might be harmed by the "findings, conclusions or recommendations in the final report." The new leak thus seemed like a transparent, evasive maneuver. Even without individual conclusions, the final report will certainly contain some sort of conclusions, and thus the committee is bound to uphold its pledge.
And this is the basis for the military advocate general's wariness: A profound lack of trust in the judgment and promises of the committee, which zigzagged and went through contortions all summer over the question of the warning letters, and before that paid little heed to a High Court ruling in the dispute over publication of the testimonies it heard (most of which have still not been released, even though it's been more than eight months since it took its last testimony). The military advocate general's office does not trust the committee. Therefore, it is prepared to gamble and reject a deal that at first glance would seem favorable to its "clients." For without individual findings, there is seemingly nothing for senior officers to worry about. But their lawyers fear that this is an empty promise and that, in fact, even "systemic" conclusions will also indirectly affect the officers' situation.
The committee members are aware that they're caught in a trap. One of them said this week, in private conversations, that he and his colleagues know that they'll come in for criticism regardless of what they do. For the committee, the preferred option was one of "hit and run": to quickly submit a final report with systemic conclusions and disperse before the people affected could challenge it. Once the report was published, those affected by the findings would have nowhere to protest. But the military advocate general and the High Court thwarted the committee members. They led them into a long and complicated legal thicket that could drag their work out deep into 2008, contrary to their original plans.
Major General (res.) Menachem Einan, who in several respects is the central member of the committee, complained in a recent interview with TheMarker that his agreement to serve on it has imposed on him a workday that begins at 5 in the morning and lasts until midnight. He and his colleagues have invested thousands of hours of work in their endeavor. They are anxious to finish it quickly - for one thing because it's very important to them to remain relevant. It's clear that a prolonged delay in publication will dull the report's sting. Right now, it's hard to see how they'll manage to "square the circle" and issue a report soon without shirking fulfillment of their pledge to the High Court. Therefore, a decision by the committee to collectively resign in protest, without publishing the report, is still a possibility.
Paying the price
To a large extent, the committee is paying the price for its own cleverness. Had Justice Eliahu Winograd and Prof. Ruth Gavison not tried to develop the innovative legal construction of a report filled with individual findings, without those affected being granted the right to a hearing, the whole affair could have been nearing conclusion by now.
Since the question of what the nature of the report will be has immediate political implications, the threat of an appeal by the military advocate general has become fodder for meddling politicians. Olmert's opponents, like MKs Yuval Steinitz of the Likud and Ophir Pines of Labor, have called on Defense Minister Ehud Barak to intervene and "halt the absurdity" that allows the Israel Defense Forces to petition the High Court of Justice against a government-appointed committee. Both men, of course, have a political interest here: An expedited publication would hasten the day when Barak has to make good on his pledge (announced with Pines at his side) to leave the government upon submission of the final report, if Olmert has not resigned his post by then. For just this reason, Barak has no intention of getting involved. A drawn-out legal confrontation actually serves his purposes, especially considering that his standing in the polls is not especially impressive at the moment.
And then, of course, there is also the legal explanation: The military advocate general's office enjoys full professional independence. Its entire responsibility is to defend officers and soldiers, and the defense minister, chief of staff and military prosecutor have no authority to impose anything on it. In terms of its clients' best interests, it's hard to dispute the argument made by the representatives from that office - Colonel Orna David and her deputy, attorney Yossi Bankal. Let's say, for example, that the committee keeps its new promise and does not issue findings about individuals. Wouldn't a systemic conclusion, such as "Division No. 162 did not fulfill the missions assigned it during the war," have immediate implications for the future postings of the division commander, Brigadier General Guy Tzur?
It all depends
On second thought, maybe Tzur isn't such a good example. After all, it was Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi who appointed him commander of the Tze'elim base, to train a whole array of conscripts and reservists. Ashkenazi made this decision despite the scathing conclusions of a military investigation of Division 162's performance during the war, just as he appointed Brigadier General Eyal Eisenberg to be the next commander of the Gaza Division, despite Eisenberg's problematic performance as commander of another division in 2006.
And this week another Ashkenazi appointment - of Colonel Avi Peled, who, as commander of the Golani Brigade oversaw the sector from which Corporal Gilad Shalit was abducted - drew sharp criticism from within the army. Anonymous criticism, of course; the current chief of staff is not one of those officers who give the impression that they will tolerate public criticism of their judgment.
Actually, the decision about Peled's appointment makes a lot of sense. These days, it's hard to find a senior commander in the IDF field units who doesn't have some serious incident (involving casualties) in his background. When, as in the case with Shalit, the problem had to do with specific errors in judgment rather than with something fundamentally wrong in the officer's functioning, there is no reason he should be punished for years on account of it.
A lot depends on who's doing the investigating. Both the division commander at the time of Shalit's abduction, Brigadier General Aviv Kochavi, and brigade commander Peled continue to advance; Brigadier General Gal Hirsch, the commander of the two reservists who were abducted in the North, resigned; and the district brigade commander, Colonel Chen Livni, was disqualified from future command positions. Had Major General (res.) Doron Almog investigated the Shalit abduction, and his colleague Giora Eiland the abduction in the North, the conclusions of a personal nature may have been precluded.
Decisions about senior appointments have always been a loaded issue for the army brass. Each officer has his patron and his flock of admirers, who are ready to swear that he and he alone is the best candidate. And there will always be those who maintain that the chief of staff, whoever that happens to be, does not know how to make appointments and doesn't select the right people. Ashkenazi's problem is different: The combination of his often steamroller-like style within the army and the media silence he maintains externally arouses wariness, even hostility. And this erupts, with some vigor, when controversial decisions are made.
After the extroverted and politically ambitious Dan Halutz, Ashkenazi's much more modest approach was perceived as the right one. The new chief of staff gave the impression that his focus was on the rehabilitation of the army and, accordingly, won public sympathy. But since taking over the post eight months ago, Ashkenazi has not given a single interview, and he has met with journalists only rarely. The number of public statements he has made (excluding remarks at memorial ceremonies) can be counted on one hand.
Silence is golden
Like Barak (regarding everything) and Olmert (regarding the raid in Syria), Ashkenazi has discovered the magic of silence. And he's buttressed it with other moves: punishing officers suspected of being the sources for wartime leaks, while supplying minimal information to the media. Ashkenazi's officers, in sharp contrast to those of the Halutz era, are afraid to get in trouble with the chief of staff. One result, say the few in the army who still dare to speak out, is that the press is failing in its mission. The goings-on and decisions behind the scenes, including those that are not classified, are not being brought to the attention of the public.
In the Second Lebanon War, problematic lines were crossed between the officer ranks and the media. Halutz's remarks about the battalion commander who carries around a journalist's cell phone number were not totally groundless. His successor, however, has gone to the opposite extreme: There is no openness, no transparency (not even partial or supervised), and no sense that the chief of staff and the army owe anyone an accounting. For now, Ashkenazi may see this as the perfect arrangement. But he ought to beware of the potential pitfall of this approach: Someone who doesn't bother to explain his decision-making and policies when things are for the most part going well, doesn't build up any credit for himself to tap into during times of mishaps and failures. And unfortunately, such times are bound to come sooner or later.
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