Comptroller: No protection from ongoing Gaza rockets or potential chemical attack

The State Comptroller on Monday released a scathing report of the defense establishment, lambasting its delays in providing protection from Gaza rockets for southern residents and expressing concern that most Israelis would have no protection from a chemical attack.

Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss' report reveals a worrying picture of bureaucratic tumult, waste of funds and administrative irregularities.

Southern towns on the border with the Gaza Strip have been waiting eight years for the government to reinforce their homes and public buildings, to little avail.

The comptroller examined two active defense systems: Iron Dome, built to protect against short-range missiles, and Magic Wand, designed to intercept medium-range missiles. Both systems are still in the development stage.

In reality, the report says, the Iron Dome missile defense system is far from completion, and Israel has already engaged in two wars - in Lebanon in 2006 and in Gaza earlier this year - in which the home front was exposed to rocket attacks.

The comptroller characterized the ongoing rocket fire from the Gaza Strip as a "real danger" and called on the defense establishment to expedite its preparations of protective spaces for residents living in the line of danger.

In his report, Lindenstrauss remarks that the Defense Ministry's research and development department was determined to develop a defense system (the report refers mainly to the last four years, because before then the issue of a defense system had been largely marginalized), but the comptroller found "substantial failures" in the defense establishment's handling of the issue.

The report focused on the fact that the Defense Ministry began full-scale development of the anti-rocket defense system before the Israel Defense Forces had determined what operational requirements such a system would be required to fulfill, and before the project was properly authorized by the IDF and by the government, even though the cost of the project is in the billions of shekels for each individual defense system.

The report went on to say that "these actions could result in the development and acquisition of defense systems that fail to fulfill the operational needs, while possibly prompting needless expenditures and wasting of time."

According to the report, the Israel Air Force only officially declared a need for a missile interception system in November 2006, after the Second Lebanon War, four years after the IDF tasked the IAF with the interception of Qassam rockets and two years after a senior IAF official determined that the need for the interception of Qassam rockets was "clear and present." The IAF did not submit this conclusion to the IDF chief of staff or his deputy, and the IDF, for its part, failed to examine the effectiveness of Israel's existing defenses.

Most Israelis are not protected against a chemical attack

The comptroller also found an "ongoing failure" in the preparedness of the home front for the possibility of a chemical weapons attack on Israel.

The failures manifest themselves in the consistent drop in the number of Israeli citizens in possession of operational chemical defense kits, namely gas masks. "The low number of functioning defense kits will expose most of Israel's residents in the event of an attack," the report warns.

"Furthermore, since the attack could occur within a short timeframe, there is a serious concern there will not be time to import defense kits from abroad. Such an occurrence could endanger the lives of most of the population, who will be exposed to chemical weapons," the report concludes.

In June 2004, the cabinet decided to collect all the defense kits from the public. Then defense minister Shaul Mofaz asked the Knesset to amend the protocol and allow the Defense Ministry to rely on the services of companies from abroad in the collection and rehabilitation of gas masks. The authorization only came in 2005, after Mofaz and then IDF chief of staff Moshe Ya'alon presented the Knesset with a plan for the redistribution of gas masks within a few days, in the event of an attack. The comptroller found that the implementation of the redistribution plan had never been tested, nor was an operational plan developed, and no resources were allotted for it. Later, the home front command concluded that the plan was not realistic.

In February 2007, the Defense Ministry decided to collect all the defense kits and store them in a central place. This plan was drawn on the basis of the assumption that the IDF would have six months to plan for any war. This assumption was refuted at the onset of the Second Lebanon War, during which the IDF had no time to prepare. Several senior defense establishment officials urged the redistribution of the kits, but the decision to redistribute was only made in April 2008, by a ministerial committee. At the beginning of 2009, the home front command began implementing the redistribution plan.

Furthermore, the report adds, the average budget allotted for the rehabilitation of gas masks during recent years amounted to 28 percent of the amount that the home front command required.