"Israeli" army chief admits war failures

Source: AP, 2-1-2007
JERUSALEM (AL-QUDS) - "Israel" failed to achieve all its objectives in its summer war against Hizbullah guerrillas in Lebanon, the "Israeli" army chief said Tuesday, but defied calls for his resignation.
Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz told reporters at a briefing that "Israeli" forces caused considerable damage to Hizbullah and killed "hundreds of (so-called) `terrorists`" in the war, which ended inconclusively in a cease-fire after 34 days of fighting.
But Halutz, summing up internal army inquiries into the war, acknowledged the army did not achieve all its aims. "We were not successful in reducing the short-range rocket fire on "Israel`s" north until the cease-fire," he said.
Hizbullah fired about 4,000 rockets at "Israel" during the fighting.
A government-appointed committee is investigating the war and its outcome, and has the power to call for Halutz`s resignation.
Halutz said he wants to stay on and "correct what can be corrected." His resignation now, he said, would be tantamount to "running away."
"I have not heard my superiors calling on me to resign," he added. "If they do, I will respond."
An inquiry by a former chief of staff found that the war`s goals were vaguely defined, Halutz noted, and that there was faulty work in command centers.
"There were cases in which officers did not carry out their assignments, and cases in which officers objected on moral grounds to their orders," Halutz said, an apparent reference to resistance against attacking southern Lebanese towns and villages.
These incidents "ran counter to the army`s basic values," he said, and a senior officer was suspended as a result.
Halutz said it would be a mistake to try now to use the military to try to free two "Israeli" soldiers captured in a cross-border Hizbullah raid - the incident which triggered the war in the first place. Instead, "Israel" is trying to recover the soldiers through diplomatic means.
In suggesting ways that "Israel`s" forces might be strengthened, Halutz said reservists could be called up for longer annual service and better training. The government, he said, could also delay the implementation of a plan to shorten the length of regular service, now set at three years.
The war with Hizbullah ended Aug. 14 with a U.N. Security Council resolution that posted a beefed-up peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon. Their mandate is to keep the area clear of armed forces.
The fighting left more than 1,000 people Lebanese mostly civilians and over one hundred "Israeli" soldiers dead on both sides, according to the U.N., "Israeli" and Lebanese officials. Lebanon`s Higher Relief Council, a government group, says the majority of those killed were Lebanese civilians. UNICEF said that about a third of them were children.