A member of the committee investigating the conduct of the Second Lebanon War has branded ongoing military action in the north, from the first Lebanon War in 1982 to the present, as "system failure."

Professor Yehezkel Dror said that Israel must undertake far-reaching and painful reforms, which include, among others, replacing a significant proportion of the Israel Defense Forces command.

The statements appear in a draft academic essay written by Dror for Bar-Ilan University published Sunday and written shortly before his appointment to the Winograd Committee.

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The committee's interim report, believed to contain a harsh indictment of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Amir Peretz and former IDF chief Dan Halutz, will be issued Monday.

In the essay, Dror includes a list of questions that the prime minister should have presented to the general staff regarding the decision to go to war. The article hints that these questions were not asked sufficiently before the war was decided upon.

The questions he lists touch on the primary alternatives for the IDF within a fixed timeframe, the consequences of the war on Israel's relationships with the U.S. and the Arab states, the implications for Israel's deterrence capability and the preparedness of IDF reservists and the home front.