Israel army in disarray over Lebanon failures

JERUSALEM: A general resigns, a colonel is disciplined and a military command battered by an unrelenting storm of criticism. The Israeli army is in disarray as it struggles to cope with the failures of the war in Lebanon.

A month after the 34-day war against Shiite militia Hezbollah ended, nothing has halted the flood of criticism against the military and political leadership over their handling of a deadly conflict that failed to achieve its main aims.

Two days after Israel's northern army commander resigned, it emerged that embattled army chief Dan Halutz disciplined the head of an armoured brigade for criticising a superior in front of his subordinates during the war.

Colonel Amnon Eshel, head of the seventh brigade, reportedly complained that his immediate boss, General Gal Hirsh, was completely cut off from realities on the ground as his badly-prepared men battled to counter Hezbollah rockets.

“Halutz severely reprimanded Eshel for disrespecting the military hierarchy and suspended him from promotion for two years,” an army said.

The latest incident, revealed two days after General Udi Adam resigned, underscored the level of disarray in the military.

The war left 162 Israelis dead and failed to achieve either main objectives of retrieving two soldiers captured by Hezbollah in a raid on July 12 or halting the guerrillas' barrage of more than 4,000 rocket attacks on the north.

Israel has also weathered heavy criticism abroad for its devastating use of force in Lebanon, where more than 1,200 people were killed and thousands of homes and infrastructure targets were bombed.

Adam's departure as the first official to step down has done little to quell discontent amid calls for further heads to roll calls such as for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Halutz and Defence Minister Amir Peretz to go.

In an interview published on Friday, former chief of staff Moshe Yaalon urged them to step down, charging that the entire conflict was misconceived and mismanaged from start to finish.   

"Going to war was scandalous and he is directly responsible for that. The management of the war was a failure and he is responsible for that," Yaalon was quoted as saying in the Haaretz daily when asked if Olmert had to resign.

"The final operation was particularly problematic and he was directly involved in that. He was warned and he did not heed the warnings. Therefore he must resign," Yaalon said.

"Halutz created lack of clarity that rattled the forces in the field, caused a loss of trust and generated chaos," he added.

On Sunday, cabinet ministers are expected to approve a five-man government commission into the war, chaired by retired judge Eliyahu Winograd and made up of two university professors and two retired major generals. 

"It is high time that a commission of inquiry gets underway," Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told army radio from Washington.

The committee is to examine how the government and defence establishment dealt with the Hezbollah threat in the years before the war as well as during the conflict from July 12 to August 14.

But its powers fall short of a state commission, Israel's most authoritative inquiry that could order police searches. 

Last week, up to 30,000 Israelis in Tel Aviv called for a state commission, but Olmert has said such an inquiry would completely paralyse the leadership at a time of serious threat, including from arch-foe Iran.

An interim report drawn up by a parliamentary sub-committee has accused the government and homefront command of serious failures in everything related to the care and protection of civilians in the north.