Secret Memo: Zionist Military Unprepared for War

Date: 14 September 2018 - 21:28

News ID: ۵۷۳۸۹

TEL AVIV (Dispatches) -- The occupying regime of Israel’s military ombudsman Maj. Gen. Yitzhak Brick has written a new report harshly criticizing the army’s readiness for war, the daily Haaretz reported on Friday.
Brick’s position completely contradicts a report issued at the beginning of September by Zionist military chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot, which stated that the Israeli forces were at a high level of readiness for war.
Brick sent his detailed dossier last week to war minister Avigdor Lieberman as well as to Eisenkot, to members of the military general staff and members of the Knesset foreign affairs and war committee. He also called for the appointment of an external commission of inquiry headed by a retired supreme court justice to examine the military’s state of preparedness.
Brick went public with his criticism of the Zionist military’s preparedness for war in June, when he presented the ombudsman’s annual report at a press conference. The report did not include a direct reference to the state of readiness, but Brick hinted that his criticism related to training, to training exercises and the state of the weaponry used by the ground forces. Since then, he has issued two detailed letters to Lieberman, to the generals and to the Knesset committee, in which he focused mainly on the military’s manpower policies, describing a serious crisis that he said could have implications relating to the capabilities of the entire military — particularly the ground forces — to fight a war. Brick's latest report is the third on the issue.
On two separate visits to the Knesset, Eisenkot has said that the military is ready for war. Ten days ago, he sent a detailed letter to the security cabinet and the Knesset in which — in a rare move — he committed that the military was in a high state of readiness and preparedness for war.
Eisenkot wrote in his letter that the military is at a high state of preparedness for war when it comes to any threat or scenario.
"As the person who is responsible for the readiness to go to war, I state that the IDF (Zionist military) is prepared and ready for every mission it is called upon )to carry out), an army with intelligence and aerial superiority, ground capabilities and rich operational experience that meets the test every day in every realm of war.”
Brick’s newest dossier was classified as "secret” and people who are familiar with its contents have refused to discuss it, Haaretz said.
It is known, however, that it is more than 200 pages long and includes long quotes from conversations that Brick held with officers, including noncommissioned officers, within the ground forces, who describe serious deficiencies in the level of training and the handling of military equipment.