Word: fighters
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...Lebanon cease-fire is holding for a second day, but the casualties in Israeli politics are just starting to mount. Israeli Defense Forces Chief of Staff Dan Halutz, an ex-fighter pilot who was the chief strategist of Israel's less-than-satisfactory war against Hizballah, is still catching flak for Israel's failure to deliver a killing blow to Hizballah during the four-week campaign. But Haltuz is now in deep trouble on the home front as well, where he stands accused of an unusual case of insider trading that some might argue borders on war profiteering...
...nonsense fighter pilot who had been a favorite of--and, some insiders say, a possible successor to--former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Halutz at first impressed Israelis with his aviator glasses and Top Gun swagger. Once asked how it felt to drop a bomb on people, he replied, "I feel a light bump to the plane as a result of the bomb's release. A second later it's gone, and that's all. That is what I feel." Such myopia may have worked for him in the cockpit, but may be a liability in politics...
...Chief of Staff, Haltuz may end up taking most of the blame. A no-nonsense fighter pilot who was the favorite of former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon - to the extent that some insiders say Sharon was grooming Halutz, not Olmert, to replace him some day as prime minister - Halutz, 58, at first impressed Israelis with his Top Gun swagger and aviator glasses. Once asked how it felt to drop a bomb on people, he replied: " I feel a light bump to the plane as a result of the bomb's release. A second later and it's gone, and that...
...double-check that a target is free of civilians before he presses the trigger on his weapons. Before firing, the pilot must first get clearance from a superior officer tapped into intelligence data and in radio contact with ground troops. Still, the decision to fire ultimately rests with the fighter pilot. "We've had many cases of canceling missions, returning with our bombs, because at the last minute the pilot saw people who weren't Hizballah," says Col. A, who points out that in the dozens of daily sorties made by his pilots, they nearly always hit their targets without...
...very cautious - for moral reasons and because we know the strategic consequences," he says referring to the tragedy in Qana, which raised an international outcry against the Israelis. He recounted one incident in which a fighter jet hit a rocket launcher once, but the pilot wasn't sure that the launcher was destroyed. When he put his jet into a dive for a second attack, he pulled out at the last second when he saw that many civilians had come running to the target after his first attack. The strike was called...