Bibi's to blame
By Nehemia Shtrasler Haaretz 15 August 2006
www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/750503.html

It is slowly becoming clear who is really to blame for the failure. It's not
Dan Halutz, who promised to finish Hezbollah in two weeks only using the air
force. It's also not Ehud Olmert and Amir Peretz, who did not check the
army's plans, but arrogantly decided within an hour to embark on an all-out
war with unattainable aims.

The guilty party is one man, a major criminal: former finance minister
Benjamin Netanyahu. This is what those in Olmert's office and senior IDF
officers say. Netanyahu is the one who pressed for cuts in the army's
budget, and the fact is that the army did not provide suitable equipment to
reservists, nor food and water to the soldiers in Lebanon. R&D programs were
also stopped. Therefore, it is the slasher who's at fault, not the leaders
or generals.

The innocent bystander may actually think that someone really did manage to
make cuts to the defense budget. But have no fear: while there had been
attempts at cuts, the Israel Defense Forces fought them off with great
success. Between 1995-2000, the defense budget retained its real value. With
the outbreak of the intifada, the army received a large increase in its
budget for two years, but then the economic crisis occurred, and it was
necessary to cut back in expenses (also in child allowances, income
supplements, education and welfare). Indeed, between 2003 and 2005 (the
years Netanyahu served as finance minister), the defense budget underwent
some cuts, but even after these reductions, it is now greater - at NIS 46
billion - than that of 2000. If that is the case, then where are the cuts?

And where was Ehud Olmert when the budget was authorized by the government?
Why then, in 2003, when he was deputy prime minister, did he not say there
should be no cuts in the defense budget and that instead, reductions should
be made in health care, education, professional training programs, and
incentives for setting up factories and increasing the work force? One needs
a great deal of audacity to come out now and blame it all on the budget. The
IDF is a large military force, fat and cumbersome. Lack of money is the
least of its problems.

Throughout its history, the army has refused to differentiate between the
front and rear. All agree that the fighting force in the army - 20 percent
of its overall work force - is entitled to excellent conditions and
benefits. But why is an economist at the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv
entitled to the same extraordinary privileges? And why are the salaries at
the Defense Ministry much higher than wages in the other ministries? And why
are ministry employees entitled to an expensive annual leave that has no
parallel in any other ministry? Why are IDF personnel in the rear entitled
to lower health tax and social security charges? And why does the IDF
subsidize the construction of housing complexes for non-frontline career
staff, at our expense? Why is a soldier at headquarters in Tel Aviv who is
injured in a traffic accident entitled to the same disabled veteran benefits
as a soldier injured in fighting?

Why does the Merkava tank project, that takes up NIS 800 million a year,
continue to operate along a very expensive assembly like since it is
considered to be an IDF production line, even though it incurs costs that do
not exist in the private sector? And what about the numerous commands,
superfluous manpower, projects oozing megalomania, the "white" or "company"
cars and jeeps? And why are career staff serving in posts in the rear
entitled to retire at 41 - an absurdity that is costing us billions.

In other words, there is money, lots of it. The only question is: where is
it being directed? Therefore, if the reservists were short on binoculars and
modern helmets, this is not a budgetary problem but a matter of priorities.
And if the army could not provide food and water to the soldiers in Lebanon,
this is also not a budgetary problem, but one of management and logistics.

But Netanyahu and the budget are a good excuse for a war that ended in
embarrassing defeat, where the gap between the aims and gains is huge. We
wanted a weak and beaten Hezbollah that is unable to continue firing
missiles against Israel, but we got an organization that hung on and whose
command structure did not collapse. An organization that, even on the last
day of the war, was capable of launching 250 rockets - 14 of them against
Haifa. Israel wanted a demilitarized zone between the border and the Litani
River, but got an agreement full of holes that does not disarm Hezbollah,
does not prevent its rearmament, and leaves it capable of launching
missiles. Instead of a multinational force in southern Lebanon, Israel will
get, if it is lucky, UNIFIL, an army of "pensioners," that will not do
Israel's work for it. They will not prevent the movement of Hezbollah
fighters to the border, and the Lebanese army will not prevent the renewed
transfer of weapons for Hezbollah from Syria.

What is most dangerous is the static situation the army is finding itself
in, staying in the hostile environment of southern Lebanon, exposed to
Hezbollah ambushes that already has let it be known that it views the IDF as
an occupying force that must be expelled. One must add to this the intense
hatred for Israel, aroused among the Lebanese as a result of the tremendous
damage caused to its infrastructure, bridges, cities and hundreds of
thousands of refugees. Most painful, for us and them, has been the cost in
blood.

Therefore, before the Prime Minister's Office continues with its spin about
the budget, it is appropriate to check the size of the budget that Hassan
Nasrallah had at his disposal: was it 10 percent of the IDF budget, 1
percent, or perhaps merely 0.1 percent?