Lindenstrauss completes report on Lebanon war

By DAN IZENBERG
State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss announced on Tuesday that he has finished drafting his report on how the government functioned on the home front during last summer's second Lebanon war and would submit it to those who were investigated by him on February 15. "The gathering of the material and the processing of the data has been completed," he told the Knesset State Control Committee. Those who receive copies of the report next week will have 30 days to respond, said Lindenstrauss. Afterward, he will present the findings to the Control Committee. According to the law, the panel may order a judicial commission of inquiry into the matter if it decides the findings warrant such an investigation. The government-appointed Winograd Committee, which is due to submit its interim findings about the war next month, was not asked to look into the functioning of the government and the army on the home front. Lindenstrauss said the report was 600 pages long and that 60 of the State Comptroller's Office's 500 employees had been working on it since the war ended in mid-August. Investigators spoke to dozens of witnesses including all the cabinet ministers having anything to do with the home front, Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz and Israel Police Insp.-Gen. Moshe Karadi.