Posted on 08/09/2006 7:01:30 AM PDT by Toonces T. Cat
The Security Cabinet on Wednesday approved a wider ground offensive in south Lebanon that was expected to take 30 days as part of a new push to badly damage Hizbullah, Cabinet minister Eli Yishai said.
The decision was made with nine ministers in favor and three abstaining. The Security Cabinet authorized troops to push to the Litani River some 30 kilometers from the Israel-Lebanon border. Currently, some 10,000 soldiers are fighting Hizbullah in a six-kilometer-deep stretch from the Israel-Lebanon border.
Yishai said the proposed operation was expected to take 30 days. However, an internationally backed cease-fire was expected to be imposed well before then.
The decision gave authorization to Defense Minister Amir Peretz and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to order the wider offensive and to decide its timing. However, it did not obligate them to act.
Government sources had estimated that the 12-person security cabinet, which Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Tuesday had so far okayed all plans the IDF had brought for approval, would not likely reject plans for a wider operation, especially amid growing public impatience with the pace of the war.
Diplomatic officials said that Israel had not come under any US pressure to shelve plans for an expanded operation as various drafts of a US-French cease-fire resolution were being considered in the UN.
According to these officials, the US position that Israel has the right to defend itself was as firm today, with the country coming under a daily barrage of Katyusha fire, as it was during the first days of the war.
This position would only change, they said, once the UN cease-fire resolution has been voted upon. This is not expected until Thursday at the earliest.
Defense officials said that the IDF could be ready to push further into southern Lebanon within hours of the security cabinet decision.
Channel 1 reported Tuesday night that the government was considering sending Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni to the UN Security Council debate on the cease-fire resolution, but this could not be confirmed by the ministry.
Jerusalem is concerned that detrimental changes may be made in the resolution, especially considering the timing of an IDF withdrawal. The draft resolution circulated on Saturday did not call for a withdrawal until an international force arrived.
The Arab League is expected to try to alter the resolution, and government officials said the specter of the security cabinet debating the widening of the operation was being used as a threat to the Lebanese that it would not be in their best interest to push for a proposal with which Israel would be unable to live.
Israel has made it clear that it would not accept a call for an immediate withdrawal of IDF troops.
There are different opinions in Jerusalem, however, about the decision to deploy 15,000 Lebanese army troops in the south announced Sunday by Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora, and how this could come into play in the new wording of the cease-fire resolution.
"The faster we leave south Lebanon, the happier we will be," Olmert said. "Of course we will only do this if we can ensure that we have achieved our goals."
One senior official said that Israel was awaiting details of the plan to deploy the Lebanese army, including when it would take place, where the troops would be deployed and what the "mission statement" would entail.
At face value, he said, Hizbullah's agreement to the deployment marks a significant change from the staunch opposition it expressed in the early days of the war.
Senior officials in the Prime Minister's Office said that no detailed plan of the Lebanese army deployment had been passed on to Jerusalem, and that there was no third party shuttling messages on this matter between Jerusalem and Beirut, although US State Department envoy David Welch has spend the last few days in both capitals, and German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier arrived in Jerusalem last night, straight from Beirut.
Another issue relating to the cease-fire resolution has to do with Israeli opposition to its Shaba Farms reference. The intensive work that has begun this week in the Foreign Ministry to prepare Israel's case on this issue signals Jerusalem's doubt that its opposition to the clause will be adopted.
-Toonces
(Go Israel, Go! Slap 'Em Down Hezbullies.)
http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/2006/08/another-straw-in-wind.html#comments
Or right on schedule?
Once they're finished in Lebanon, they should just keep heading north.
Nobody, with the possible exceptions of Syria and Iran which are at war with Israel anyhow, is going to go to war with Israel over the hezbullies. The idea of a ceasefire before hezbollah is dead is a joke.
Absolutely correct! This is Israel's chance to plug one hole that's been a thorn in their side since 1948 and they'd be foolish not to exploit the opportunity to the fullest. They should tell the UN, The Arab League, and even the US to take a hike until they've created a viable buffer zone (parking lot?) on their northern border.
A ceasefire now would only benefit hezbollah. Israel would be smart to ignore any such resolutions until their work in Lebanon is finished - not a second before.
Israel only has 10,000 troops in the fight. No wonder they can't stop the rocket attacks. The IDF is learning the lessons that the US learned in Iraq. To stop a small hit and fire enemy, you need to blanket the area with boots on the ground. The US needs to take note also. The Hezbollah fighters are equiped with night vision goggles, body armor, latest portable anti tank weapons. The US can no longer field small armies and rely on technology advantages in body armor and night vision in tactical situations because the adversaries are able to get the same technologies. Numbers will count!!! DoD needs to prioritize spending to equip huge numbers of light infantry forces and SOF spotter detachments. IMHO we need to expand the Army from 10 combat divisions (2 arm, 4 mech, 2 mot, 2 abn/ambl) to 6 additional light mot infantry divisions. Under Reagan we had 16 combat divisions manned by volunteer soldiers for a 2.5 war strategy. We need such a force again.
Numbers will count!!!
Correct. Studies done in the 70's concluded that, despite an adversaries technological advantage - in this study it was fighter planes - 1 superior fighter jet can always be taken out by numerous inferior fighter jets.
Godspeed Israel.
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