Posted on 08/29/2006 7:56:24 PM PDT by jdm
TIBERIAS, Israel, 30 August 2006 — Prime Minister Ehud Olmert denied yesterday that Israel had aimed to destroy the Hezbollah Shiite militant group during the monthlong Lebanon war.
“The government made a decision on the 12th of July. They never said the goal was to destroy Hezbollah. It was to implement UN Resolution 1559, to have the Lebanese Army in the south and that was achieved,” he said here.
UN Resolution 1559, adopted by the UN Security Council in September 2004, called for all foreign troops to leave Lebanon and for all militias there to disband.
Olmert spoke a day after he admitted for the first time to “failures” during the 34-day offensive against Hezbollah. “It is true that not everything worked as we wished. We were not ready. We did not always achieve the aims we hoped for. Not everything worked properly. There were problems and failures,” he said late Monday in the northern port of Haifa.
When Israel launched the Lebanon offensive on July 12, it said the main aims were to recover two soldiers captured by Hezbollah the same day in cross-border raids, which left eight other troops dead, and to prevent the group from firing rockets into Israel.
The two Israeli soldiers remain missing and Hezbollah pummeled northern Israel with rockets right up to Aug. 14, when a UN-brokered cease-fire came into force on the ground.
Olmert, meanwhile, came under heavy criticism yesterday for announcing the creation of a committee of inquiry to examine the failures of the Lebanon war rather than a powerful independent commission.
Acknowledging a wave of discontent for a war that failed to achieve its main objectives and which left 162 Israelis dead, the increasingly unpopular Olmert said Monday the committee of inquiry would be chaired by a former Mossad head.
“The committee will be charged with the task of examining the functioning of the government, its proceedings and decision making and anything else it sees fit to examine,” he said in a televised speech.
But he rejected the establishment of a state commission — the most powerful type of inquiry in Israel — which he said would “completely paralyze” the leadership when warfare was not yet fully over and Iran posed a threat.
Politicians on both the left and right-wing united in a maelstrom of criticism that Olmert, whose approval ratings have sunk to an all-time low since taking office in May, had backed a toothless inquiry.
Ami Ayalon, an MP with Olmert’s main coalition partner, the center-left Labor, branded the prime minister’s decision a political mistake. “I don’t think this is what we need. They have no power to investigate people, no power to look at documents. It’s a political mistake,” he told Israeli radio.
“There is not the slightest chance of getting to the truth because it lacks power,” added Danny Naveh, former Cabinet minister and member of the opposition right-wing Likud party.
I'm sure the AFP won't raise the question of whether Hizbollah, Palestine, Iran or any of the other sand bagging states have a goal of wiping out Israel.
The objecto f war is to destroy the enemy and not just to break things.
Well that would be pretty dumb to go to war not to destroy the enemy.
So wtf was the goal? Dead Hezzies can't lob missiles at you Olmert. Get a friggin grip.
Olmert is still Prime Minister?
Netanyahu would still be kicking their butts....on the outskirts of Damascus by now. They better wake up before Olmert "Kerrys" them out of their country. The Mooselimbs will simply reload while he is twiddling his thumbs.
Mossad may take care of Nazgulla yet.
This guy sounds like a damned fool.
The objective SHOULD have been to destroy their enemy...
I hope round two produces some new leadershiip for Israel.
They deserve better.
If Lebanon doesn't get behind the "plan" for peace in the area -- then all areas of the damned country supporting Hezbollah should be reduced to a single layer of rubble.
Semper Fi
Is Olmert's government gonna collapse?
You know, that comment is damming in an of itself.
If you aren't going to fight a war to destroy your enemy, why fight it at all?
Olmert Denies Destroying Hezbollah Was War’s Aim ??
What the hell? If it wasn't, then he needs to be impeached (or whatever they call it there), convicted and executed for the loss of Israeli soldiers.
Stick a fork in Olmert.
I will be flamed for this but I said all along that Israel never said that they were going to destroy Hezbollah. I said before, several times, that what they really wanted was for 1159 to be implemented. I really think that it was American talking heads that started all the talk about how Israel must destroy Hezbollah. All they had to do was kill people and break things enough to weaken Hezbollah, which they did.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert denied yesterday that Israel had aimed to destroy the Hezbollah Shiite militant group during the monthlong Lebanon war."
Why the hell not?????
Well then why did Israel leave Lebanon the first time? It was because they wanted to! When they left they got assurances in the form of 1559 that they would be secure against attack. That is what they wanted. However 1559 was not implemented. So Israel had to go back in and weaken Hezbollah, kill people and break things so that the UN would do its work this time or else Lebanon would be destroyed the next time.
Things did not turn out so badly. Bush was right. He said that after time had passed people would see that Hezbollah had failed and the Lebanese government would grow stronger. I think we are seeing the glimmer of that now.
" A public opinion survey that was published in Beirut this week showed that two-thirds of the non-Shia public in Lebanon believes that Hezbollah was defeated in the war. "
Israel deserves whatever it gets if it continues to let this lawyer continue to lead.
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