The State Comptroller must not disrupt the IDF’s handling of the current war at this time, but once the war does calm down for real, a state commission of inquiry of the October 7 failures is crucial to restore the public’s faith, former senior Mossad official Shimon Erlichman has told the Jerusalem Post in an exclusive interview.
Erlichman interviewed after he signed his name to a petition earlier this week by the Movement for the Quality of Government in Israel along with dozens of other top former Mossad, IDF, Shin Bet, and police officials against State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman’s aggressive moves to try to start his investigation of the defense department.
The Movement accused Englman of potentially disrupting the prosecution of the war, sidelining the option of a state inquiry. Many have accused him of being used by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to use the IDF as a scapegoat to avoid blame.
It was not easy for Erlichman to sign his name and go public, but “it’s personally important to me” to defend the defense establishment “because the defense establishment is very close to my heart after more than 25 years of service.”Rising to the top levels of the agency, Erlichman served as the head of the Mossad’s Technology division and as head of the agency’s Headquarters under Mossad chief Meir Dagan, but has mostly avoided the public glare and the media until now.
“It was clear to me that I should join, and that this would mean exposing my name. But my name has not been in the headlines. This is not simple,” he said.He added that in viewing the situation, “I have some advantages in being removed” from any conflict of interest that recent officials might feel in being targets of criticism, though there are some downsides in being less current on some security issues than a more recent retiree.Erlichman said that he had been involved in comptroller probes over the years as a routine part of being a senior Mossad official.Explaining why it was still too early for a comptroller probe of the defense establishment, he stated that “there is an understanding that events are still developing all of the time. In my experience, probes need lots of attention from managers and others. You need to follow [the flow of the probe] and to respond to the comptroller.”“I know the extent of the resources needed, including emotional ones. This [the war] is a very unusual situation, and it [the probe] cannot be done now. The officers are still fighting,” he said.Further, he said, “You need to make war plans, you need to evolve and adapt to the war developments with lots of daily attention 24/7.”None of this means that Erlichman would give the defense establishment a free pass on the October 7 failures.“At the end of the war, a group of them will need to hand in their keys [resign], and make some very difficult [personal] decisions,” due to the October 7 invasion. But during wartime, everything is still very complex, and they need to keep a clear head,” he countered.“There is a struggle. Everything else must be put to one side. You can’t go backwards. So maybe you were not perfect, but you need to focus on fighting the war.”Also, he said, “During a probe, you are brought back to those very hard moments. You need to put your emotions and your normal job duties on the side.”
If he opposed a comptroller probe now, when and how does he believe the October 7 failures should be investigated?
If he opposed a comptroller probe now, when and how does he believe the October 7 failures should be investigated?“It needs to be probed. It was a massive failure. You cannot do merely an internal probe and learn all of the necessary lessons. This is a much larger saga. All of the defense establishment, the IDF, and the government need to be probed,” he responded.Then he explained how some kinds of operational probes are carried out in real-time during the battle, so as to improve the fighting of the battle itself in real time. But other probes are carried out only after “a war ends, or the level of intensity goes down sufficiently such that commanders can redirect their attention to probes.”Comparing a comptroller probe and a state inquiry, he commented, “There is a place for both of them. We need to define the lines dividing them.”“The advantages of a state commission of inquiry are that it has the authority to summon witnesses and experts, that it can question and confront them,” said the former senior Mossad official.He explained this goes far beyond a comptroller-style probe. In such a more limited probe, he said that information comes from more voluntary interviewees and submitted statements. Such a process he said does not fully extend sufficiently to get to the bottom of the case or factual issues in dispute.“My preference is for a state inquiry. It is professional, clean, and should unite the nation of Israel. This is a body for restoring the public’s faith. It is part of the substance of that restoration,” he stated.Continuing, he remarked, “The facts and conclusions are very important and need to be presented to the public. The public needs to see and hear – it needs to feel that its institutions are fixing whatever needs to be fixed.”Moreover, he said, “I am not against the comptroller performing his duties. A state inquiry can set the boundaries with the comptroller and everyone will have plenty to work on.”Analyzing aspects of the October 7 failure, he said, “There were problems with how the government functioned. We need to change how the government operates. There was a conceptual intelligence failure and an operations failure connected to that intelligence. We need to prevent one failure from leading to the whole house falling down.”In terms of critiquing the basic conceptual strategy of the defense establishment and the government, “the state inquiry must take things all the way to the end.”“I was a child during the Yom Kippur War. It was a different time. It took many months to understand what had happened. These days, the media is drowning us in information. But we need an objective authority” to make determinations about the failures and about how to do better.After all of that, he still did not want to give a set timeline for when the state inquiry should start. He said, “while there is still war, and the defense establishment’s attention is also focused on the North, it is not just about the level of fighting. The general security situation in the Middle East and in the world is very fragile. Once the tensions go down, then they should immediately appoint a state inquiry and go forward with the comptroller.”Pressed on the possibility that some officials, like Netanyahu, might try to delay the state inquiry until the prescribed 2026 election date, he said, “We don’t need to wait for peace, and I know there is a political side. There are players who have interests. Waiting for the interim conclusions and the final conclusions is going to take years, but the public will not agree to sweep the most substantial event since 1948 [the War of Independence] under the rug.”Meanwhile, after weeks of public fighting between Englman and IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Herzi Halevi over the timing of the probe, the two sides met this past week to negotiate over the relevant issues, though it was unclear whether the dispute had been resolved.