Olmert refuses to resign after Lebanon war report

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert defiantly declared that he would not quit, despite one of the harshest government inquiry commission reports in Israel’s history.

The report blamed the Israeli leader for faulty judgment in ordering and directing last summer’s war in Lebanon.

It said Mr Olmert hastily led the country into the conflict against Hezbollah guerrillas without a comprehensive plan, exercised poor judgment and bore ultimate responsibility for a war that ended inconclusively but killed more than 1,000 combatants and civilians on both sides, most of them in Lebanon.

Mr Olmert was already under pressure to step aside before the report was made public. His support evaporated after the war, causing him to shelve an ambitious plan to pull out of much of the West Bank.

But backed by a ruling coalition that appeared solid, at least for now. Mr Olmert rebuffed the demands to step down.

“It would not be correct to resign,” he said in a brief televised statement from his office yesterday evening, “and I have no intention of resigning”.

Instead, he said he would convene a special session of his Cabinet tomorrow to begin examining the findings.

Even reports of official commissions investigating Israel’s disastrous war in 1973 and its part in the massacre of Palestinian refugees in Beirut in 1982 did not exceed the harshness of the Winograd Commission, appointed by Mr Olmert himself under pressure of public displeasure with the war.

“Some of the declared goals of the war were not clear and could not be achieved,” the report stated, criticising Mr Olmert for rushing into a large-scale conflict in response to a cross-border Hezbollah raid during which three soldiers were killed and two others captured.

“The prime minister made up his mind hastily, despite the fact that no detailed military plan was submitted to him and without asking for one,” the commission found. “All of these add up to a serious failure in exercising judgment, responsibility and prudence.”

An expressionless Mr Olmert slumped against the back of his chair as the panel’s chairman read him the report, which cited “a severe failure in the lack of judgment, responsibility and caution”.

The report capped a six-month investigation into the war. In 34 days of fighting, Israel failed to secure the return of the captured soldiers, cripple Hezbollah or prevent the militant Shiite Muslim militia from firing thousands of rockets into Israel.

Soldiers returning from the battlefront complained of poor preparations, conflicting orders and shortages of food and supplies.

Between 1,035 and 1,191 Lebanese civilians and combatants were killed in the fighting, as were 119 Israeli soldiers and 39 civilians, according to official figures from the two sides.

Israeli Cabinet minister Eitan Cabel will announce his resignation today in protest at the critical findings of the Lebanon war inquiry, his spokesman said.

Cabel, a Labour Party minister without portfolio, is the first member of the government to step down following the report.