Winograd Report (summary)

Jerusalem is snowed under both by snow and responses to the Winograd Report on the conduct of the Second Lebanon War. This analysis is based on a translation of the press conference summary given by Justice Winograd on Wednesday (attached) following the presentation of the full Report to the Government.
There is no doubt that the Report constitutes a blistering criticism of the political and IDF leadership regarding its preparedness for the war. While this cannot be attributed only to the then current leadership, nevertheless the responsible parties failed miserably in their functions before and during the war.
Before the war there were several options, notably either a powerful air campaign and/or a ground campaign, but it seems, from the Report, that no decision was made in the initial stages as to how the war would or should be conducted. There were failures of decision making and communication, in that the leadership of the IDF failed to communicate the options to the political leadership. As a consequence the idea that the air attacks could resolve the issues of the war, notably the need to stop the rocket attacks on northern Israel and the return of the two Israeli hostages, was never clearly discussed, and there was no "exit strategy."
Further, the ground offenses in southern Lebanon were conducted in a half-hearted and ad hoc manner with insufficient preparation and without an overall strategic plan. Since orders were continually reversed there was great confusion on the battlefield. Together with the lack of sufficient supplies, both military and food/water, this resulted in a loss of morale as well as unnecessary fatalities. However, the performance of the individual soldier/reservist in the IDF was not criticized.
Only in the last 3 days of the 33 day war did the political echelon decide on a massive ground assault of southern Lebanon. While this was too little too late, there was no evidence that this was carried out purely for domestic political reasons, but rather to affect the final ceasefire agreement. However, notwithstanding the loss of a further 33 lives it failed to achieve significant goals.
As a result of the failures of the war and the criticism leveled in the Interim Winograd Report (which dealt only with the period leading up to the war), both the then Minister of Defense Amir Peretz, and the Chief of Staff Dan Halutz resigned, together with several other high ranking IDF officers. Only the Prime Minister Ehud Olmert remains from that leadership.
However, since the Winograd Committee decided not to apportion personal blame and because the second part of the Report on the conduct of the war was less critical of Olmert than the Interim Report, PM Olmert has decided not to resign.

Herewith the official Likud press response to the Report:
In response to the announcement of Judge Winograd the Likud says that the Winograd report is extremely harsh and places clear responsibility for the failures on the political leadership.
Prime Minister Olmert as head of the executive branch must take personal responsibility and resign.
Mr. Barak, who promised to leave the government no later than the release of the final Winograd report, must keep his promise and quit the government. If Barak was looking for a reason to avoid resigning he could not find one in this report.