Ehud Olmert – a centrist – and former Mayor of Jerusalem is the 12th Prime Minister of Israel and he is under siege.
He launched the so-called "Hezbollah War’ in 2006, a conflict that left more than a thousand people dead. With no planning, Olmert ordered his forces to attack Hezbollah strongholds in neighboring Lebanon. At the time of the initial attacks, critics complained that Olmert was engaging in "idiotic overkill".
Now a report has been published that says that effort was a failure.
What has now been dubbed "Olmert’s War" has been called "a serious failure".
"This war was a big and serious failure," retired judge Eliyahu Winograd said as he read out his government-appointed commission’s final report, adding that there was a "great deal of failure at senior political and military levels."
"Entering into the war without an exit strategy was a grave failure," he said.
"The ground operation did not achieve its objectives," he said, referring to a massive ground offensive launched in the dying days of the war, when the United Nations was brokering a ceasefire agreement.
The report comes nine months after an interim inquiry found Olmert and other political and military leaders responsible for "severe failures" after launching the war against Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia in July 2006.
In typical right-wing fashion, Olmert intensified the "war" just before a U.N.- brokered ceasefire was to take effect. Judge Winograd found that the decision to launch the war was a "grave mistake".
An opinion poll published by privately-owned Channel 10 television on Tuesday had found that 58 percent of Israelis wanted Olmert to step down if the commission’s criticism of his conduct of the war was "very severe," against 23 percent who said he should stay on whatever the findings.
Olmert is also embroiled in a series of corruption scandals since officially assuming his post in May 2006 after his predecessor Ariel Sharon fell into a coma.
Israel in Crisis. The Palestinians in Crisis. The World Apathetic.
