Yom Kippur War: IDF chief ignored pre-warning about Egyptian artilery
“Everyone one of the forts on the [Suez] Canal, as far as potential from the enemy, could be hit easily with 5,000 shells per hour.”
By YONAH JEREMY BOBUpdated: SEPTEMBER 17, 2018 17:25Then-prime minister Golda Meir (R) accompanied by then-defense minister Moshe Dayan, meets with Israeli soldiers at a base on the Golan Heights after intense fighting during the 1973 Yom Kippur War.(photo credit: REUTERS)
On the eve of the 45th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War, the Defense Ministry disclosed new classified material, including that IDF chief-of-staff Haim Bar Lev ignored warnings in 1972 that the forts in the Sinai defense-line with Egypt named after him could be easily hit with 5,000 shells per hour.The warnings came from IDF Operations Command Maj. Gen. Yisrael Tal at a classified IDF High Command meeting on May 29, 1972, who said that, “everyone one of the forts on the [Suez] Canal, as far as potential from the enemy, could be hit easily with 5,000 shells per hour,” by Egyptian forces.He continued, “it is not just a question about a given fort being destroyed. Rather, even if the fort is not destroyed, the people [soldiers] there will never fight again – because of the shock, the gas” and other harm from the attack.“We have not risked exploring this [scenario], and we cannot wait until the first test and only afterward evacuate the forts…my point of reference for nixing the forts is that it is an awful trap…And it can happen in one hour and if it happens in one day to four to five forts, it would be a national disaster,” he added.Tal’s general opposition and the opposition of then Maj. Gen. Ariel Sharon to the Bar Lev line – both were overruled - as the heart of Israel’s defense strategy versus Egypt was known before the latest disclosures.But the latest disclosures are the first time that the defense ministry publicized portions of the May 29, 1972 and October 5, 1973 classified IDF High Command meetings as well as Tal’s alternative strategy document and critique of the Bar Lev line from 1970.Tal and Sharon’s warnings were eventually far more accurate than Bar Lev and the majority IDF High Command estimate that the defense line would hold long enough for them to have effectively 24 to 48 hours to reinforce the line with reserves.Investing so much faith in the Bar Lev defense line has been retrospectively uniformly judged a devastating intelligence failure which led to the Egyptian rout of Israeli forces in the early days of the war.That failure was later salvaged by a hugely successful Israeli counter-attack, but the lessons learned from the failure continue to pressure the IDF and Israeli intelligence through to the present day.Regarding Tal’s 1970 alternative strategy document, he said that the Suez Canal should be patrolled day and night by two brigades of troop carriers and tanks in regular movement.However, he rejected leaving command centers or extensive defense positions that would be stagnant in any area that might be within the range of Egypt’s artillery and said that the defense line of immovable forts should be defended more modestly.From the October 5, 1973 IDF High Command meeting, there are quotations from IDF intelligence chief Eli Zeira about suspicious USSR troop movements. In addition to updating the IDF High Command on aggressive military drills and troop movements by Egypt and Syria since September 5, 1973, he said that, “the Russians have sent 11 transport aircraft to Egypt and Syria.”Elaborating, he said that it was unclear what the purpose of these transport planes was, but that it seemed to be an effort “to remove Russian personnel from those states. If so, the question is why and we have no clear explanation as to why.”He added that, “most of the Soviet naval vessels have left Alexandria. This is also a very very rare thing.”But at the end of the day, Zeira said that “all of these things do not change IDF intelligence’s basic estimate that the chances of Egypt and Syria initiating a war is still very low…even lower than low.”Zeira has been criticized for ignoring troop movement signs (Russian evacuations could have signalled that they wanted their forces out of the area before an impending war) and other possible warnings of war.Finally, IDF Logistics Command Maj. Gen. Nehemiah Kayin warned the meeting that there were insufficient food provisions for IDF forces in the event of a war.Then-IDF chief-of-staff David Elazar (who had replaced Bar Lev) responded, “If there are not enough war rations, then they will fast. At the end of the day, it is Yom Kippur. We fast.”
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