'Lebanon war failures reminiscent of 1973'

By JPOST.COM STAFF
"The government's management during the war in Lebanon is reminiscent of the failures of the 1973 Yom Kippur war," one of the members of the Winograd Committee appointed to probe the shortcomings of the Second Lebanon War said during a discussion focusing on the IDF's preparedness at the border with Syria, Army Radio reported on Wednesday. During the meeting, it was proposed that only following the involvement of MKs should the deployment of IDF reservists be reinforced. One of the committee's members justified this proposal by saying that "if a Knesset committee can shed light on an issue to the chief of staff, why can't cabinet or government members do so?" Former chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, MK Yuval Steinitz (Likud) told Army Radio that "the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee members caused the prime minister to realize the urgency of raising the level of alert on the Golan Heights against the Syrian army during the Second Lebanon War." Steinitz hinted that the Winograd Committee was placing a great deal of importance to how the political echelons dealt with reports on the heightened state of alert on the Syrian side of the border.