Word: halutz
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Pentagon offered to supply Israel with "bunker-buster" bombs, capable of punching deep into the enemy's underground defenses. Israel's air force chief at the time, Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, - who, as Chief of Staff, is currently commanding Israel's air, sea and land strikes in Lebanon - rejected Washington's offer, claiming that Israel had its own superb weapons. But with the "bunker-busters", says a senior Tel Aviv intelligence source, Israel could have knocked out most of Hizballah's rocket-launchers and possibly brought the war to an early close...
...fifth week, Hizballah is still pounding Israel's northern cities with over 150 rockets a day. Though Israeli intelligence determined early on exactly where most of those rockets were being fired from - launchers hidden in 38 underground bunkers, burrowed 6 yards down on rocky hilltops across southern Lebanon - Halutz's vaunted Israeli-made "air fuel" bombs have failed to destroy them. So last month, a top intelligence source told TIME, Israel put in an urgent request for precision-guided, 5,000 lb "bunker-buster" bombs. The Bush Administration complied, but it will take several weeks for the bombs...
...diplomatic solution when Olmert was pondering an all-out attack - and between Olmert and the defense minister and his army generals, who wanted to land a major blow against Hizballah on Thursday when the prime minister was stricken with doubts over such a risky move. At the same time Halutz sidelined his northern commander, responsible for the day-to-day running of the ground war. Ma'ariv newspaper columnist Ben Caspit fumed: " This campaign was conducted negligently, hesitantly, indecisively. When we needed to attack, we waited. When we should have waited, we attacked...
...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...
...Waving aside the offer of American-made "bunker-busters" is only one example of Halutz's famous hubris. In a remark that will surely haunt him during the inevitable rash of post-war inquiries, Halutz said on July 14th, "In this day and age, with all the technology we have, there is no reason to start sending ground troops in." A month later, he was ready to order in thousands of troops as the only way to defeat Hizballlah. Granted, Haltuz made the comment after his air force managed to destroy most of Hizballah's arsenal of long-range missiles...