Israeli War Plan Had No Exit Strategy

Several officials said there was little dissension among ministers over the scope of the response. Within hours it had become an air-and-sea blockade of Lebanon. But Olmert, who was elected in March having never held a security portfolio, expressed concern over what Hezbollah intended to do in response.

"He wanted to know what would happen in the north," a senior Israeli official who attended the meeting recounted. "On that day, though, everyone was in favor of war."

Scores of targets were hit in the first hours, including many of Hezbollah's longer-range rocket launchers in a single 34-minute period. But rockets launched by Hezbollah soon began falling across northern Israel.

The conventional Israeli military plan for an attack on southern Lebanon is called "Stones of Fire." The doctrine has been revised over the years, but it still relies on a ground invasion force of four army divisions.

Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, Israel's chief of staff, set that plan aside. Instead, Halutz, the first air force general to lead the military, emphasized air power. He hoped aerial assaults would encourage Lebanon's Sunni Muslim and Christian populations to turn against Hezbollah, a radical Shiite movement that has an armed wing and a vast social services network, and that operates as a state within a state.

"We couldn't fight Lebanon as a country," said Nehushtan, the military's head of strategic planning. "The only way to stop them was to make them take the blame for their attacks."

Given the expected rocket reprisals from Hezbollah, some Israeli officials believed a large ground war was inevitable and should begin sooner rather than later. But Nehushtan, then a brigadier general, said "Stones of Fire" had lost its relevance after Syria's military withdrew from Lebanon last year. He said Hezbollah's guerrilla tactics required a different approach.

According to Israeli intelligence estimates, Hezbollah had invested $1.5 billion over the past six years preparing for war, chiefly with material and logistical help from Syria and Iran, whose Shiite government uses the militia to project power in the Arab world. Weapons had been stockpiled in tunnels, bunkers and private homes, a nightmarish scenario for a conventional army in the age of cable news.

Israeli military officials had watched much of the preparation take place from ground posts and aerial surveillance, and even knew which houses were used for storing some of Hezbollah's rockets months before the war began. But senior Israeli officers said the extent of the tunnel networks, the size of the arsenal and some of the more sophisticated weapons in it were not anticipated.

The officers also said Israel's airstrikes on some bunker systems and built-in short-range rocket sites were less effective than planned. Also, the Lebanese did not turn against Hezbollah as the Israelis had hoped.

"This was not the beginning," Nehushtan said of Hezbollah's ambush. "This was the end of one process and the beginning of another."

Support From Abroad

Israel's foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, was one of those who initially supported the military assault on Hezbollah. She was influenced by events earlier in Gaza, when the soldier had been captured by radical Palestinians. Some of her senior advisers had been arguing that there were bigger issues involved -- that Israel should strike hard at Hamas, one of the groups involved in the soldier's capture, and attempt to focus international attention on its radical supporters in Syria and Iran. Livni had not fully agreed with them at the time. But when Hezbollah struck, she readily assented.