How the IDF kept itself in Lebanon

By Zvi Bar'el, Ha’aretz, 12.6.00

Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon foiled three prophecies: the South Lebanon Army proved unable to hold bases vacated by the IDF; Hezbollah didn't massacre SLA men or laborers who had worked in Israel; and Syria didn't consolidate a new anti-Israel front and muster its components to lobby for an Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights.

Sheer prophecy, it turns out, replaced intelligence forecast reports based on reasoned analysis and reliable data compiled and confirmed on the basis of ample experience in the theater in question. Though facts proved predictions to be unfounded, there are still prophets howling warnings about how new circumstances will yet arise in Lebanon with foretold massacres occurring.

The interesting question isn't who made correct predictions and who erred while forecasting the future in Lebanon. Instead, the relevant question is why did those who erred make their mistakes.

"The main reason is the terrible lack of reliable, up-to-date intelligence information," one high-ranking intelligence official explains. "For instance, we had to wait until the withdrawal was completed before we heard [Hezbollah leader] Hassan Nasrallah declare that he didn't intend to harm SLA soldiers after the pullout, and that his threats were meant to goad them into fleeing. It's possible that we made too much use of the microscope and too little use of the telescope. We focused on Hezbollah and on tracking down sites where its military operations were based, and we didn't attribute special importance to Lebanon's sociopolitical structure, which is an important factor in Hezbollah's policy today."

It isn't hard to grasp the difficulty that intelligence analysts faced while trying to penetrate Hezbollah, an organization that operated some 500 guerrillas and whose actions were guided by just a small coterie of decision makers. But how can the ignorance with respect to the SLA's fate be explained? The issue here isn't intelligence. It's a simple question of straightforward analysis of developing events.

Insofar as Lebanon is concerned, conceptions haven't been built upon analyses of ongoing events. On the contrary. First, a conception is reached - and subsequently facts are configured to fit the conception. As it turned out, each proponent of a particular conception concerning Lebanon's future purveyed his own intelligence report. Conclusions in such reports did not derive exclusively from objective information possessed by their backers.

In the past, intelligence officers have confessed that they were compelled to twist their evaluations to conform with prevailing political conceptions. Also, rivalries between report-makers, be they personal or professional in nature, have distorted their presentations. Cautious intelligence officers often hedge their estimates to protect their own hides, just in case contingencies arise that they haven't anticipated. In the present case, disputes caused friction among different intelligence branches - until just a month ago, those branches couldn't reach a consensus about the likely result of a pullout from Lebanon.

When it comes to breeding conceptions that are rooted mainly in emotional beliefs and are bereft of hard facts, Lebanon's soil has proven to be incomparably fertile. Hezbollah and Syria were believed to be one united body. The SLA, it was believed, was loyal to Israel, despite the fact that its ranks were filled with Lebanese nationals. Syria, it was predicted, would be willing to sacrifice Lebanon on the altar of the Golan Heights. Lebanon's government wasn't perceived as being a relevant factor. Strikes against the Lebanese civilian infrastructure, the experts reckoned, would compel Syria to pressure Hezbollah. These are just some examples of intelligence estimates that were submitted which factored in decision making, and which proved to be erroneous.

It appears that more than anything else, Lebanon was an IDF training school for the formulation of tactical, strategic and political conceptions. Since the fighting in Lebanon was not subjected to criticism so long as it didn't result in many casualties, pupils enrolled in this school could act freely, not fearing the results of erroneous conceptions. It was only a political decision to withdraw - as opposed to a military decision which should have arisen, under the circumstances - that put an end to the conception-mongering. It's no surprise that the IDF was the element which found the withdrawal decision hard to swallow - suddenly, the army lost its role as Israel's decision-maker in Lebanon.

The problem went well beyond the fact that results predicted in intelligence estimates never occurred. The expediency by which the political establishment allowed the IDF to determine policy in Lebanon, and the IDF's opportunistic exploitation of its role as policy arbiter in the North, grossly violated the crucial distinction which must separate the supply of information data from the work of political decision-making. Such a separation of spheres is no guarantee that policy makers will reach prudent decisions, but it must be observed, if the army is to remain in its natural sphere.