Halutz Defends 2006 War Decision, Kaplinsky Sees Government and Army Mistakes
Three years after the war with Hizbullah, former Israeli army chief Dan Halutz said he would have recommended the military to make the same move were the conflict to erupt again.
"Even today, given the same figures, I would have recommended the same course of action," Halutz told a conference at the Tel Aviv University”s Center for Strategic Research on Sunday.
"The course of action that I recommended on July 12 was well-considered, not trellised on the day of the abduction" by Hizbullah of two Israeli soldiers in a deadly cross-border raid, said Halutz, who led the army at the time of the war.
However, Kadima lawmaker Shaul Mofaz, a former defense minister in the Israeli cabinet during the 2006 war, said that Israel had achieved only limited success during the war.
Mofaz termed the war a missed opportunity for the Jewish state and told Israel Radio that Hizbullah now has more missiles than it did prior to the military operation. He also said that the Shiite group had increased the range of its rockets.
Maj. Gen. Moshe Kaplinsky, who served as the Israeli army”s deputy chief of staff during the 34-day war, agreed with Mofaz saying that both the army and the government made numerous mistakes.
Kaplinsky, who spoke during the conference aimed at marking the third anniversary of the war, said the Israeli military did not employ its preplanned reaction in case of soldier abduction and rocket fire.
He added that the army also failed to utilize all of the units and tools at its disposal and was too slow at calling up reserve units.
Also present at the research center was Giora Eiland, former head of the Israeli National Security Council.
Eiland criticized ex-PM Ehud Olmert”s government, saying that the war with Hizbullah and Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip were two occasions in which the political echelon ordered a military campaign without setting clear operational goals.
Eiland believes the Gaza offensive was troubled by the same symptoms which led to the failure of the Israel-Hizbullah war: "Government meeting on July 12 (2006) failed to clearly define the goals," he said.
According to the former National Security Council chief, the best course of action Olmert could have taken at the time was "to order a forceful retaliation by using the air force for two or three days, and make Hizbullah pay a high price."