Mossad missed Hezbollah threat

The Washington Times ^ | 16 Aug 2006 | Bill Gertz

[Marius3188]

Israel's storied foreign-intelligence service failed to fully understand the threat posed by Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, based on a view among many analysts that the guerrilla organization was an evolving political group, according to U.S. officials and private intelligence specialists.

The Mossad had intelligence about most Hezbollah weapons, including rockets fired into Israel and other hardware. But the service knew little about the military and intelligence side of Hezbollah, a diverse organization made up of Islamic terrorists, conventionally armed militia forces, a charity wing and a political movement.

Mossad is famous for past exploits, including the global campaign in the 1970s to track down and kill Palestinian terrorists in retaliation for the deaths of 11 Israeli athletes and coaches at the 1972 Munich Olympics. Its specialty has been recruiting agents inside terrorist groups and using their information to effectively counter or limit attacks.

However, the recent fighting in southern Lebanon revealed major shortcomings in the agency's intelligence on the precise locations of Hezbollah leaders and rocket launchers, said officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

"This was an intelligence failure, but not on the same scale as those of the United States prior to 9/11," said one U.S. official long involved in intelligence matters.

[mewzilla]

Bill Clinton=Ehud Olmert.

Would've been nice if Israel had learned from the US's mistakes.

[ASA Vet]

Would've been nice if Israel had learned from the US's mistakes

We haven't even learned from our mistakes.
We'll repeat them again and again.

[mewzilla]

Well, we got Dubya twice, so at least we're educable :)

[ASA Vet]

We also had the toon twice. And it's spouse is waiting in the wings.

[mewzilla]

Well, I'm an optimist :) Run, Hillie, run. Bwah hah hah hah hah....

[ASA Vet]

I don like the idea of a "Run, Hillary, Run" front bumper sticker.

[mewzilla]

LOL. I do, too :)

[OldFriend]

Rather ridiculous to blame this on Olmert who has only been there a short time.

It's election time in Israel and all this bull is the most dangerous time of meddling.

What could Israel do in the face of what was happening in Lebanon.

Without any provocation there was no way they could have a full scale invasion.

Even with provocation just look at the world wide reaction to their 'lack of proportionality'.

All our knowitalls ought to knock it off already.

[prairiebreeze]

Rather ridiculous to blame this on Olmert who has only been there a short time.

Gotta disagree with you on that one OldFriend. I think it's a cold slap of reality to voters everywhere that the 2nd in command be up to the job....whatever that job entails. "President Logan" comes to mind....

IMO, Olmert clearly wasn't up to it, when it came to fighting Islamofascists. Unfortunately.

[xkaydet65]

It does appear that Hezbollah did learn from a truly successful organization, The IRA. The security of the IRA has proven very difficult for MI5 or 6 to penetrate. The IRA has a strong political wing in Sinn Fein which also conducts charitable and social works in the Catholic neighborhoods of Ulster. While the IRA never had access to weaponry anywhere close to Hezbollah, their military organization was first rate, and many of their specialists are now employed by terrorist groups around the world.

Fortunately for the Brits and the Irish, the IRA played by a certain set of rules that provided reasonable protection to civilians, the famous coded phone calls to the Metro police warning of bombs. One can only guess the carnage that would have ensued had the IRA used Hezbollah tactics against Britain's people, and Britain responded in a similar way.