"The decision to launch a military campaign and deviate from the policy of containment was taken hastily, without clear and agreed goals being set for the campaign, without a consistent blueprint of action that could bring about their implementation" - Winograd report, page 119

Someone owes the Winograd Committee a public apology. After months of insinuations and accusations, and following the marginal and overblown dispute concerning publication of the transcripts, the panel's members removed any suspicion that they were beholden to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Olmert was savaged by the committee. Even if he somehow survives the present public outburst, his tenure is approaching its end with giant steps. The report is a thorough, deep and critical verdict. The Winograd Committee took no prisoners.

A question that is not easily answered, from Olmert's point of view, is whether he didn't make a major mistake. Could it be that precisely by insisting on a government-appointed commission, its wings supposedly clipped, instead of a state commission of inquiry, as was called for, he painted himself into a corner? Last September, the prime minister assumed that with a state commission he had more chance of being deposed. In practice, the very opposite occurred. The Winograd Committee, perhaps because it felt the burden of proof was on it, judged Olmert harshly. The tone of the report in several instances is far from reflecting the ponderous respect that characterizes court judgments. Its bluntness sometimes recalls critical newspaper articles.

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As far as the public is concerned, there is no doubt that an important service was done. Only rarely are the failures of the political and defense establishment analyzed with such a sharp scalpel. But there is another aspect, too. Anyone who reads the report carefully cannot escape the impression that in the view of the committee, this was an unnecessary war. It is possibly that because of this, Olmert's successor, whoever he may be, will think twice before going to war. It is also possible that the next prime minister will be seized by such paralyzing fear in the face of similar decisions that he will prefer not to take action of any kind, knowing that action will bring him close to a commission of inquiry and eventually to his ouster. The trouble is that every few years Israeli prime ministers have to make decisions whose consequence is sending soldiers to their death. In the light of the failure in Lebanon and the growing threats to Israel in the region, it may not be long before a similar decision will have to be made again by an Israeli prime minister.

At the end of August, two weeks after the end of the war, Shahar Ilan wrote in these pages: "Henceforth every government will have to take into account also that a significant and influential segment of public opinion does not regard any number of losses as justified ... From this point of view, every war that Israel initiates ... is a war of choice and is not legitimate." The Winograd Committee talks about weighing data and examining alternatives before going to war. The question is whether its conclusions will be construed in this way by the next leadership as well, and how the Winograd "effect" will influence their considerations.

Good decisions

"In many cases, judiciousness is displayed by means of a careful weighing of alternatives" - Winograd report, page 103

The interim report notes 15 elements that characterize "good decisions." On the face of it, the report's assertions, which are clearly based on academic theories, appear to be correct. At the same time, it's doubtful whether they are appropriate to the political and security reality of Israel. The committee demands the almost-impossible from Olmert, from Defense Minister Amir Peretz and from the war's chief of staff, Dan Halutz: to detach themselves from the events of the morning of July 12, 2006.

On that Wednesday afternoon, when the seriousness of the situation in the North became apparent, different possibilities of response were considered. The line of thought that was shared by all the decision makers and officers was that a response was necessary. The disagreement was over how to respond. The prevailing view held that the policy of containment was no longer viable. The committee, in contrast, repeatedly reprimands the three top figures because they were in such a hurry to respond.

Numerous consultations were held on the first day of the war, as the Israel Air Force continued to bomb Lebanon. According to the decision-making model of the committee, the government and the chief of staff should have taken a few days to think things through, in order to clear their heads and discuss all the possibilities available to them. It's doubtful that this is a realistic suggestion. It is very possible that Israel would have found it difficult to respond if it had waited, because heavy international pressure would meanwhile have been exerted on the country to hold its fire.

The committee is very good at identifying serious failures in the prior planning and decision making relating to the launching of the war. Despite these failures, there was definitely a certain logic in the decision to attack the long-range Fajr rockets that night. The most difficult problems of the war relate to the next stages, which were not addressed in the interim report: the decision to continue with the attacks a week later, after it was clear that the targets of air attacks had been depleted. And even more, the offensive of the last 60 hours of the campaign.

Speak up

(Thursday evening, July 13, telephone conversation between Olmert and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni; from Livni's testimony): "I told the prime minister that I think we have to advance the diplomatic issue and that I see that things are actually continuing, even though they were supposed to have been finished at midday ... The answer I received from the prime minister was that the army has targets for at least ten days and that I should not worry, I should be calm" - Winograd report, page 90

There is no recorded transcript of this telephone call, and Olmert was not asked about it in his testimony to the commission. However, the very fact that Livni's comments were cited in the report shows that the committee ascribed credibility to the foreign minister's testimony. But, as in her embarrassing press conference on Wednesday, in which she did not succeed in urging Olmert to resign with sufficient vigor, the conversation on July 13 was apparently also conducted with a certain lassitude. "She spoke in such a whisper about a diplomatic ending in the security cabinet meetings, that it's hard to believe anyone heard her," says a member of the security cabinet. Like Dan Meridor and Ehud Barak (who had no official positions in the war, but are now priding themselves on the insight they had already at its start), Livni refrained from pounding the table during the war and telling Olmert what she felt: that the operation had to be concluded quickly. As such, she missed an opportunity to demonstrate leadership of a different kind. What she apparently thought would be political suicide at that time, looks in retrospect as though it may have now assured her the premiership.