Monday, July 12, 2010

IDF probe: Army didn't have ‘Plan B’ for flotilla op


YAAKOV KATZ
07/12/2010

Maj.-Gen Eiland presents Ashkenazi 100-page report detailing findings of internal probe into 'Mavi Marmara' interception, says he found “operational mistakes” rather than “failures."

A series of operational and intelligence mistakes led to the botched raid in late May aboard the Mavi Marmara Turkish passenger ship that was trying to break the Israel-imposed sea blockade on the Gaza Strip, according to an internal military probe into the incident. As expected, the report refrained from issuing personal recommendations against IDF officers although it did refer to a number of mistakes that were made by the most senior levels in the IDF.

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In the raid by commandos from the Navy’s Flotilla 13 – known as the Shayetet – nine Turkish nationals were killed and 10 commandos were injured.

On Monday, Maj.-Gen. (res.) Giora Eiland, who headed the probe, presented a 100-page report to the IDF General Staff in which he listed a number of “mistakes” that he said were made in the planning stage of the operation.

In a briefing to reporters, Eiland, the former head of the IDF’s Planning Division and Israel’s National Security Council, said that he did not find negligence in the planning and implementation of the operation. He also made a clear that there was a difference between “operational failures” and “operational mistakes” and that he only found mistakes, not failures.

'Navy should have prepared a Plan B'

Eiland slammed the Navy for not preparing a “Plan B” for the operation and should have reconsidered rappelling commandos onto the Mavi Marmara’s upper deck after noticing from sea and air that there were several dozen acitivsts on board prepared to violently resist.

Eiland said that once the Navy ships sailed alongside the Mavi Marmara and saw the preparations on board for conflict, the top Navy command should have reconsidered its options and possible even delay the boarding of the ship.

“Once they saw that there were dozens of people on the deck, the rapelling of commandos down to the upper deck could still have been avoided,” the report concluded, adding that the Navy should have, as a result, prepared a “Plan B” for how to take command of the ship, which it did not.

'Slug dislodged from soldier's knee didn't come from Navy gun'

Eiland’s probe also found that shots were initially fired at the boarding commandos from weapons that the passengers likely had prepared before hand. The slug that was dislodged from the knee of one of the soldiers was of a different caliber than that which is used by the Navy.

He also detailed the events that led to the abduction of three commandos, who were thrown from the upper to the lower deck and were only recovered about 40 minutes later after they were spotted standing wounded on the ship’s bow and surrounded by a number of passengers. The Navy commandos opened fire from above, scared off the passengers enabling two of the wounded to jump into the water. The third, who was severely wounded, was then rescued by other commandos who jumped down to the bow from the upper deck.

According to Eiland, the Navy did not have technology that would have enabled it to stop the ship ahead of the operation without putting soldiers on board its upper deck to take control of the bridge.

“Such an option did not exist,” Eiland concluded in his report. During their work, members of Eiland’s panel met with a number of officials who offered ideas how to stop the ship without boarding it. According to the committee, it is possible to develop such a capability but it will take approximately two years.

Since the flotilla, the Navy has met with a number of companies and is pursuing technology that could be used to stop a ship in the future.

'MI should have designated IHH as a target'

Another mistake that Eiland found was that Military Intelligence did not designate Turkey or the Islamic organization IHH, which organized the flotilla, as a target for intelligence gathering. He said that this was justified up until 2010 at the time since Turkey was a friendly country to Israel and IHH, was like a dozen other radical Islamic organizations that provided financial support to Hamas.

In the beginning of the year though, Eiland claimed that MI and Israel’s other intelligence agencies should have designated Turkey and IHH as intelligence targets due to the deterioration in ties between the countries. He said that the Israeli intelligence community should have understood that it was dealing with an organization that was supported by the ruling political party in Turkey and prepared accordingly.

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