Israel Matzav

Let's play the guessing game

The Winograd Report is allegedly going to be released in the next few weeks, but there will be one important element missing from it: It won't name names.

The Winograd Commission is set to publish its final report on the management of last summer's Second Lebanon War within the next few weeks, but the report will not include personal recommendations.

The report will include details of the government's and army's handling of the war, but will exclude the names of officials blamed for political and military failures during the 34-day conflict with Hizbullah.

It remains unclear whether the report will clearly state that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is unfit to lead the country over his poor handling of the conflict. In an intermediate report released in April, the commission faulted Olmert, former Defense Minister Amir Peretz and former IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz for taking Israel to war hastily and failing to conceive an exit strategy.

Ynet has learnt that the commission will avoid naming names for fear of causing political upheaval and undermining efforts to rehabilitate the army after its poor performance against the Lebanese Shiite group.

The commission is of the opinion that the Israeli public will decide whom to blame.

This is horse manure. If they don't want to make recommendations, that's one thing, but not to name names is absurd. The public is entitled to know who messed up. Naming names should have no effect on the IDF - most of the senior commanders have resigned already (and if new Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazy is responsible we are certainly entitled to know about it). And it's about time that the politicians be held accountable for their actions. This is absurd!

Unfortunately, with the news of the 'peace conference' this morning and with the Knesset opening its winter session this afternoon, this item (which has been online for three hours but only at YNet) will likely be lost in the shuffle.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 4:04 PM