Lebanon Operational Review

Winds of Change has an operational review of the Lebanon battles.

It is long but it is good.

Commenter linearthinker alerted me to two pieces by Yoni the Blogger:

Battalion Commander's Anger

DANNY IS angry at the strutting Napoleonic pomposity of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz at the war's start, and at their unrealistic war goals, not least the return of our two kidnapped soldiers.

I must admit that Olmerts agressive initial action and those pompous statements combined to fool me. I didn't expect the return of the soldiers. I did expect the strategic defeat of Hizballah.

NOW IN its fourth generation, the Merkava 4 proved its mettle in the harshest tank battle of the war, fought in a precipitous gorge west of the crook of the Litani River in the central sector - the battle of Wadi Saluki.

Two of the eight Merkava 4s were knocked out of commission and their commander was mortally wounded, caught in the sights of long-range, Russian-made, Syrian-supplied, laser-beamed, self-propelled Kornet anti-tank missiles, with their lethal dual warheads that penetrate the armor and then detonate incendiary blasts within. But the reserve commander saved the day, rushing to the rescue of the other six by leading their climb up sheer slopes to the top of the gorge, an ascent few other tanks in the world could navigate. In all, four crewmen died in the battle of Saluki, a battle which was an unqualified triumph of the Merkava 4. Had those tanks been of an earlier generation, not equipped with state-of-the-art technology and active self-protection mechanisms, 50 crewmen might well have perished.

The active self-protection system refered to is the Trophy System discussed at Intel Bonanza

Shabak Head Diskin Slams Government

Y-Net reportsThat the size of the reservists' protests is growing.

“There was hesitancy all along; it felt as though the IDF brass was not utilizing the power they had in their hands,” he said. “There was no coordination between the different corps or a defined objective, nor were basic values such as human life and devotion to the mission upheld. The feeling was that we as soldiers on the ground could have acted but had our hands tied behind our backs. The top commander lost this war. Omert, Peretz and (IDF Chief of Staff Dan) Halutz must take responsibility, and we are the ones who must remind them of this.”

Yaakov Hasdai, who was a member of the Agranat Commission , which was appointed by the Israeli government to investigate the circumstances leading to the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War, said at the rally “I support the call for the resignation of the top political echelon and the establishment of an inquiry commission as part of the demand for a culture of accountability in the political system.”

“I came here to tell the younger generation to rise up, protest and learn the lesson of the previous protest generation and call for a wide-scale plan to rehabilitate the country.”

However, Zvigenbaum and several others said they are not demanding an inquiry commission.

The reservists protest began with a march through Castel National Park near Jerusalem, and reservist Ofer Levin said this was not coincidental.

“This was the site of the first war-related fiasco in which Israel abandoned its injured and killed soldiers and did not send rescue teams and enforcements,” he said.

Shlomo Lev Ami, a former Etzel (The Irgun) member, said during the rally in Jerusalem ‘if we do not rise up and prepare an alternative for the rotten regime, then a new regime will be established that will be similar to the one you are toppling.

“Now is the new generation’s time – you should be a part of the next government,” he said.