Strategic Assessment
As expected, the publication of the final report by the Commission for the Examination of the 2006 Campaign in Lebanon was accompanied by a media and political uproar. Because of the nature of the report, which departs from the partial report published in April 2007 that assigned personal responsibility to the prime minister, the defense minister, and the IDF chief of staff, the tumult is likely to ebb over time. The question is what will remain of this detailed and important report. Will it be shelved, gathering dust like past reports, or will it, together with the partial report that preceded it, serve as a springboard for repairing the severe failures and shortcomings that it exposed “in the decision making processes and staff work of both the political and military echelons, and in the interface between them.”