MIDDLE EAST:In a scathing report yesterday, a government panel accused Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert of "a severe failure in judgment, responsibility and prudence" in launching last summer's military assault in Lebanon, increasing pressure on the embattled leader to resign.
But Mr Olmert told members of his Kadima party last night that, while the report was harsh, he had no intention of stepping down. Defence minister Amir Peretz, who also came in for scathing criticism in the report, said he too would not quit.
"It would not be correct to resign, and I have no intention of resigning," Mr Olmert said in brief televised remarks last night.
The interim report, which dealt largely with the decision to go to war - final findings, including on the manner in which the war itself was conducted, will be published later this year - criticised Mr Olmert for "hastily" launching the air and ground campaign and for lacking a well-constructed plan.
Mr Peretz was lambasted for his lack of experience, while army chief Dan Halutz, who resigned earlier this year becuase of the war, was described as impulsive and as having inaccurately portrayed the army's readiness for the conflict with Hizbullah.
"The primary responsibility for these serious failings rests with the prime minister, the minister of defence and the former chief of staff," said Eliyahu Winograd, a retired judge and head of the panel, as he read out the interim findings. "We single out these three because it is likely that had any of them acted better, the decisions in the relevant period and the ways they were made, as well as the outcome of the war, would have been significantly better."
The report also said that cabinet support for launching a harsh military response to Hizbullah's attack on an Israeli border patrol and the subsequent abduction of two soldiers, "was gained in part through ambiguity in the presentation of goals and modes of operation, so that ministers with different or even contradictory attitudes could support it."
If the political and military leadership had been more "meticulous" in surveying the options open to Israel, the report stated, it would have discovered that "the ability to achieve military gains having significant political-international weight was limited".
Mr Olmert went to war with the backing of a clear majority of Israelis, but they turned against him after the military failed to stem the daily salvos of rockets fired by Hizbullah from southern Lebanon. The poorly-managed ground campaign, the failure to return the captured soldiers and the deaths of 34 Israeli troops in the final 48 hours of the campaign, after a ceasefire had already been brokered at the United Nations, also shattered public confidence in their political and military leadership.
A total of 119 Israeli soldiers and 39 civilians were killed during the 34-day conflict, while close to 1,200 Lebanese died, among them several hundred Hizbullah fighters.
While opposition politicians called on Mr Olmert to resign and call an early election, senior members of his party defended his decision not to quit. "The committee did not draw personal conclusions," said veteran politician and Kadima member Shimon Peres. "This government has a majority."
Mr Olmert, whose ratings cannot plummet much further - a recent poll showed a mere 2 per cent of Israelis trust him - seems to be banking on the fact that there are not enough politicians in parliament who want elections just a year after Israelis went to the polls. But the prime minister, already plagued by several corruption scandals, has been badly hurt by the report and some colleagues have suggested he will not survive beyond the summer.
The scenario they have in mind is not one of early elections - Kadima won 29 seats in the last election but polls show it would be lucky to garner a handful next time round - but rather the election of a new party leader and the formation of a new government. That would keep Benjamin Netanyahu, a former prime minister and leader of the hawkish Likud - the clear front-runner in opinion polls - at bay.
The person most often touted to replace Mr Olmert is foreign minister Tzipi Livni, who has emerged from the war largely untainted.