Israeli decision making faulted

Photos

Israeli decision making faulted

see larger image

uploaded by ForecastHighs

The fact that a permanent successor to outgoing National Security
Council chief Ilan Mizrahi has not been chosen reflects poorly on the
prime minister’s contention that much has been learned and fixed since
the Winograd Committee issued its interim report in April.

In its final report issued on Wednesday, the committee found
“serious failings and shortcomings in the decision-making processes and
staff-work in the political and the military echelons and their
interface,” and “serious failings and flaws in the lack of strategic
thinking and planning, in both the political and the military echelons.”

The words “decision-making,” “staff work” and “strategic thinking”
pop up everywhere in the report, invariably along with terms like
“failed,” “flawed,” “absent” or “inadequate.” That the National
Security Council remains sidelined is one of the central factors behind
this.

The serious failures in the process of decision-making by Olmert,
wartime defense minister Amir Peretz and then IDF chief of General
Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz were highlighted in the interim report a full
nine months ago. Apart from the continuing National Security Council
debacle, in the intervening months, the Strategic Affairs Ministry was
established, but saw little cooperation from the Defense and Foreign
Ministries. With the departure of strategic affairs minister Avigdor
Lieberman from the government, greeted with glee within the defense
establishment, that ministry is left without a head. Assuming it is
carrying out important work, why has Olmert not found an immediate
replacement?

Prof. Alex Mintz, dean of the Lauder School of Government at the
Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya, and a world-renowned expert on
decision making, says Olmert, Peretz and Halutz made a series of errors
and that biases in their decision-making stemmed from their
overconfidence in air power [Halutz], reliance on a charismatic and
intelligent chief of General Staff [Olmert and Peretz], and
underestimating Hizbullah’s capabilities.

“They believed in a concept that proved to be wrong. They locked in
to a concept that said air power could knock over Hizbullah and end the
rocket bombardment of the North, and when that concept proved wrong, it
took them too long to overturn their decision and ‘unlock’ from that
option,” Mintz says, adding that the decision-making processes of the
wartime leaders was “primitive.”

The failure of the air power conception should have been quickly
evident. Yet thousands of rockets continued to hit the North as days
turned to weeks of warfare, 200 on the final day alone. Ground forces
were eventually sent in to do a job in 60 hours that the initial
planners assumed would require weeks.

The Winograd Committee could not find a proper answer as to who made
the final decision to embark on a ground operation that would last 60
hours, with the proviso that the forces could be ordered to stop within
six hours, nor could it be certain how that decision was made. What the
committee does say unequivocally is that the ground operation, in which
33 soldiers died, did not meet its goals. How could it, in the time it
was given?

The panel also points out that not only was there a delay in
preparing the ground forces for deployment in southern Lebanon, but
that the real failure was that the idea of a large ground offensive was
not brought up for serious discussion by the army and the political
echelon. The committee finds that only toward the end of the first week
of August 2006 (the war ended on August 14) was a ground attack plan
prepared.

“Avoiding serious discussion on a ground deployment made it
impossible for the decision-makers of all ranks to clearly understand
the price of their hesitation [on whether to deploy ground forces] as
compared to its benefits, and thus to take an informed decision,” the
report says. The committee also finds that the “erroneous conception
adopted whereby the government and cabinet could not prepare for a
ground offensive without it actually having to be executed” placed
serious restrictions on Israel’s ability to act.

Instead of having ready-made strategies prepared by professional
staff-work and tinkering with plans as conditions necessitated, Olmert
forced himself into a position where operations were largely shaped by
events - including the army’s failure to stop the rocket fire, and
prolonged cease-fire negotiations at the UN.

The committee also notes that it saw “no serious staff-work on
Israeli positions on the cease-fire negotiations front.” This situation
improved in part when the team headed by the prime minister’s chief of
staff was established. The team worked efficiently and with dedication,
professionalism and coordination. “This could not compensate, however,
for the absence of preparatory staff work and discussions in the senior
political echelon,” the report states.

Can Olmert, a leader who made decisions based on overconfidence and
who did not use the staff-work tools available to him - such as the
National Security Council - to make better decisions, be trusted to
make better decisions in the future?

Mintz believes Olmert has become more systematic in his
decision-making process, as evidenced by the attack on a target in
Syria on September 6 and the fact that he hasn’t yet sent the army into
a ground operation in Gaza.

What Olmert, and the army brass, need to be careful of now, Mintz
says, is over-cautiousness. Fearful of repeating mistakes of the past,
and being blamed for them, the country’s decision-makers may feel they
need to cover themselves on every base. This kind of thinking may be
contrary to the creativity and daring Israeli leaders will need to
display in the face of the Iranian threat, and the challenge posed by
Hamas in Gaza.

Retired judge Eliahu Winograd summed up his remarks by saying that
his committee’s suggestions “for systemic and deep changes in the
modalities of thinking and acting of the political and military
echelons and their interface should not be obscured by current affairs,
local successes or initial repairs.”

These are “deep and critical processes,” the judge said. Indeed,
they are the sort of changes that can only be carried out through daily
staff-work from agencies such as the National Security Council, the
Foreign Ministry Research Department, and other necessary strategic
planning bodies.