Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his aides have begun criticizing a report by State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss on the state of homefront preparedness during the Second Lebanon War. The report will be published at 1 PM on Wednesday.
Olmert dismissed Lindenstrauss’s phrasing as “popularist,” and accused Lindenstrauss of blaming the current government for problems that began 15 years ago. He said that homefront preparedness has been “the top priority” for over a year.
The report has been extensively reviewed by government and IDF officials, particularly GOC Homefront Command Yitzchak Gershon, who expressed concern that the report would be damaging to IDF captains. Gershon’s lawyers and Lindenstrauss’s aides held several long negotiations, and parts of the original report were eventually changed. Gershon himself has considered quitting several times since the war, but was told by IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi that he should remain in his position.