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Olmert weathers war storm
31/01/2008 13:06 - (SA)
Jerusalem - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert appeared to weather the latest challenge of his tumultuous term on Thursday after a key government report spared him from a major drubbing over the 2006 Lebanon war.
Despite widespread expectations to the contrary, the Winograd Commission report refrained from the harsh language it used for Olmert in its interim findings nine months ago, which blasted the premier for "serious failure".
Criticising the 34-day war as a "serious missed opportunity" for Israel and listing a number of failures, the report said however that the premier had acted in what he sincerely believed to have been the country's best interest.
"Olmert can breathe easy," said an editorial on the Ynet news website.
Military slammed
With most of its harsh criticism reserved for the military, the report by the government-appointed commission turned it "from a serious indictment to a public lifesaver for Ehud Olmert", it said.
If Olmert ends up with his political career intact, it will mark another Houdini act for the man who was branded Israel's savviest politician when he assumed office in May 2006 and has since emerged unscathed from a series of scandals.
The first opinion poll released after Winograd reflected a more forgiving trend towards the 62-year-old Olmert, whose ratings plummeted to single digits after the war against the Lebanese Shi'ite militia Hezbollah.
Many in Israel consider the massive ground and air war on Lebanon to be a failure because it did not halt Hezbollah rocket fire or recover two soldiers whose seizure by the guerrillas triggered the conflict in July 2006.
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