Jerusalem – Israel’s defense minister appointed a former army chief of staff on Wednesday to investigate the military’s handling of the 34-day war in Lebanon as public criticism intensified that the offensive was poorly planned, unsuccessful and not worth its cost in human lives.
The formation of the committee fell well short of meeting demands for an independent, in-depth probe of both the government and the military, and analysts said it marked only the beginning of what promised to be a lengthy string of investigations.
Meanwhile, Israel’s army chief, Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, came under deep pressure to resign because of revelations he found time to call his broker and sell off his stocks to avoid wartime losses hours before launching Israel’s largest military operation since 1982.
The war against Hezbollah was widely seen here as a valid response to a July 12 cross-border attack, during which the guerrilla group killed three soldiers and captured two.
But Israel’s wartime solidarity quickly crumbled after Israel agreed to pull its army out of south Lebanon without crushing Hezbollah or rescuing the captured soldiers.
One hundred eighteen soldiers were killed in the fighting and 39 Israeli civilians were slain by the 3,970 Hezbollah rockets that hit Israel. At least 842 Lebanese were killed in the fighting, with some estimates exceeding 1,100.
With Israelis banding together during the war, approval ratings soared for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz, men with little military experience who took office just two months before the fighting started. Polls on Wednesday showed a collapse in their popularity as Israelis began criticizing the conduct of the war.
Support for Olmert fell from 78 percent during the fighting to 40 percent in a poll of 500 people published by TNS-Teleseker.
Peretz’s approval rating plunged from 61 percent to 28 percent, according to the poll, which had a margin of sampling error of 4.4 percentage points.
