Security and Defense: Post mortem dues
by Yaakov Katz, Jerusalem Post, Jan. 24, 2009
IDF OC Intelligence Maj. Gen Amos Yadlin
On the photo-lined wall are well-known former generals, such as the country’s sixth president, Chaim Herzog, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and former chiefs of General Staff Moshe Ya’alon and Amnon Lipkin Shahak.
But there are also pictures of five Intelligence chiefs who were forced out of their positions prematurely, some for providing inaccurate predictions that led to disasters, like that of the Yom Kippur War.
On Sunday, when Yadlin arrived at work, he couldn’t help but think about how Hamas - like five of his own predecessors - had inaccurately read its enemy in the run-up to Operation Cast Lead, which came to an official end on Wednesday with the full withdrawal of IDF forces from the Gaza Strip.
Since its violent coup d’état in the summer of 2007, Hamas had been preparing for a showdown with the IDF. To meet the challenge, it called on Iran for assistance in creating a comprehensive defensive and offensive plan to fight Israel and strike deep inside its cities.
The plan had three pillars. The first rested on defensive structures and measures in Gaza, including dozens of kilometers of tunnels and bunkers, and thousands of roadside antipersonnel and antitank bombs planted next to booby-trapped homes.
The second rested on rocket capability, and the third on obtaining a “victory image,” in the form of a burned-out Merkava tank or an abducted soldier.
Despite the tens of millions of Iranian dollars poured into Gaza, Hamas’s plan failed. The tunnels and booby traps were unsuccessful in stopping the IDF as it pushed into the Strip on January 3. The 401st Armored Brigade, for example, succeeded in crossing and cutting the entire Strip in half in less than five hours. (Continue to Read this Article
The tail end of the article has the most revealing insight of all… top Israeli officials intend to give Hamas what it couldn’t get on the battlefield - live terrorists in exchange for Gilad Shalit’s body. The mind-boggling stupidity of the proposal comes on top of throwing away victory in the war. Just when you think Kadima-Labor can’t get more stupid in their mindless appeasement of the enemy and in endangering Jewish lives, they creatively try to top their last act in treason. Its a depressing coda to a war that should have been won!
Comment by NormanF — January 24, 2009 @ 9:31 am
NormanF’s comment is spot on. The mind numbing stupidity of the flagging Kadimah Labor leaders confirms the looming public disaster, releasing Hamas fighters for either the remains of Sgt. Gilad Shalit or a note saying that he’s in a secure dungeon in Iran. One would have thought that IDF special ops teams might have uncovered his alleged dungeon and determined if it was feasible to spring him, if alive. If the exchancge that NormF contemplates occurs then the Israel body polity has only one choice on February 10th to end the travesty and get rid of the appeasers. Also, nowhere in this JP analysis of Operations Cast Lead is there the merest scintilla of discussion about the hundreds of captured Hamas fighters and the results of battlefield interrogations. Perhaps that it to come later.
Comment by Jerry Gordon — January 24, 2009 @ 10:34 am
Vomit! This is another propaganda piece for the Kadima pretending that they didn’t just murder Israel. The only thing they did was to prove to HAMAS that Israel was too weak to stop them and Hamas is now triumphant. Israel took it;’s best shot and came up empty. Now the rockets will never stop falling and will increase until every Israeli is dead.
They give the Israelis defeat and sell it as victory.
Spinmasters!
What I wonder is: Where is the leadership expecting to retire? Do they have hideaways ready for themselves in USA or where? I’m sure you will see them take care of themselves, where they can reflect on their “victories”.
Comment by Max — January 24, 2009 @ 9:33 pm