MIDDLE EAST: Aware of growing public criticism of his management of Israel's military campaign against Hizbullah and anxious to parry right-wing criticism of his acceptance of a UN ceasefire resolution, Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert said yesterday that the Shia organisation had been severely crippled by the Israeli assault, while acknowledging that there had been "shortcomings" in the way the campaign was conducted.
Addressing parliament just hours after a UN-brokered ceasefire went into effect, Mr Olmert said Israel's offensive had changed the "strategic balance" in the region.
Referring to Hizbullah, he said there was no longer a situation in which a "terror organisation is allowed to operate within a state as the arm of the axis of evil".
Careful not to declare victory, Mr Olmert did vow to "continue hunting" Hizbullah leaders "everywhere and all the time. It is our obligation", he said, adding that the organisation's arsenal had been severely depleted and its confidence undermined.
However, with the military offensive drawing to a close, and with Israelis in northern Israel emerging from bomb shelters, the public has increasingly begun to ask searching questions of Israel's political and military leadership.
Why, they want to know, was a massive ground operation delayed for so long while hundreds of rockets rained down daily on northern Israel? And why, once a ceasefire agreement had already been reached at the UN, did Mr Olmert then give the order for a massive ground offensive, during which 31 soldiers were killed?
There is also increasing anecdotal evidence of reserve soldiers lacking basic equipment and of food shortages in the front-lines. And there is criticism of the government's treatment of the civilian rear. Why were many of the bomb shelters in northern Israel uninhabitable? Why did the government not provide accommodation in areas out of rocket range for residents in northern Israel who did not have the means to leave their homes?
Responding to the criticism, Mr Olmert said he took "full responsibility" for the decision to launch a military offensive.
He conceded that there had been shortcomings and that there would be a thorough "review". Nothing would be "hidden" from the public, he said. But if public criticism grows, the prime minister may have to agree to a far more pervasive inquiry - possibly in the form of a state commission of inquiry, as some politicians have begun demanding.
The Israeli leader, who took office just over three months ago, enjoyed high popularity ratings at the outset of the conflict. But as Hizbullah succeeded in drawing Israel into a war of attrition and the military was unable to halt the daily rocket fire, his ratings began to dive.
Sensing Mr Olmert's political vulnerability, opposition Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu said yesterday that there had been "many failures, failures in identifying the threat, failures in preparing to meet the threat, failures in the management of the war, failures in the management of the home front."
Addressing parliament, he said he believed there would be "another round [ with Hizbullah], because the just goals that the government set were not achieved". It had failed, he said, to win the release of the two Israeli soldiers being held captive by Hizbullah and whose abduction sparked the fighting; it had not disarmed Hizbullah; and it had failed to eradicate the missile threat.
"We have received a time-out," he said. "But it is also a time for our enemies to rehabilitate themselves."