U.K. paper: Winograd to blame Olmert for IDF deaths

The Winograd Committee's final report is expected to find Prime Minister Ehud Olmert responsible for the death of 33 Israel Defense Forces soldiers in the final days of the conflict, Britain's Sunday Times reported.

The committee was charged with investigating the conduct of Israel's senior echelons during the Second Lebanon War.

The war broke out in July 2006, following a cross-border attack by Hezbollah, which led to the deaths of eight IDF soldiers and the abduction of two others. The 34-day conflict ended with a United Nations-brokered cease-fire.

The Sunday Times said the report will focus on the decision to continue fighting after a cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hezbollah had already taken shape at the UN Security Council.

The Sunday Times quoted one of the sources as saying "Olmert, aware that a cease-fire agreement was underway, ordered the army to carry out an impossible operation to wind up a failed war against Hezbollah with a big showdown."

Another source said "my hunch is that the report will blame Olmert in the harshest way possible and the last 60 hours of the war will be the hook on which they hang him."

One IDF officer told the British newspaper "this was the operation the army had planned for months - to crack down decisively and finish off Hezbollah... But it should have begun the war, not ended it and we needed 96 hours to trap Hezbollah and then a week to finish them off."