Porat questions Barak on Tze'elim

ARUTZ7 3/16/99: "Former State Comptroller Miriam Ben Porat has harshly criticized the conclusions of Comptroller Eliezer Goldberg's report on the Tse'elim army base tragedy. Ben Porat said this morning that though she agrees that Barak did not "run away" from the scene, the issue of exactly when his helicopter left the scene of the accident was no less the subject of contradictory testimonies than whether Barak did or did not offer aid to the injured soldiers.

In light of this, Ben Porat is "puzzled" how Goldberg could have concluded that Barak's helicopter left only after the ambulance-helicopters arrived.

Barak relieved about reputation & report

THE JERUSALEM POST 3/16/99: "The blood libel which has been carried out against me these past years as a man and as a chief of General Staff is now over," Labor Party leader Ehud Barak said yesterday following the publication of State Comptroller Eliezer Goldberg's report which shows unequivocally that he did not flee the scene of the 1992 Tze'elim training accident.

The abridged version was made public yesterday afternoon, after the bereaved families received copies of the report on the accident in which five soldiers were killed and six wounded when a missile was misfired in the Negev training base.

Twenty percent of the report was kept confidential. The report also cleared Barak and other senior officers of responsibility for the accident. But Goldberg said he could not conclude that Barak failed to lend a hand to the wounded or respond to calls for help, due to conflicting testimony by witnesses.

Justice Minister Tzahi Hanegbi, in a statement which the Likud later distanced itself from, seized on this point and said that not only will he not apologize for claiming in June 1997 that Barak fled from the scene of the accident, but his "unequivocal conclusion" from the report is that "today Barak must withdraw his candidacy for prime minister and leave public life."

Hanegbi noted that the comptroller could not determine whether there were calls for help that went unanswered. "The serious moral stain on Barak in my opinion remains," Hanegbi said...

The Likud yesterday did not identify with Hanegbi's words. A statement from its campaign headquarters read:

"Hanegbi's statements were not made in the name of the prime minister and the Likud but on his own behalf as a personal response and are not appropriate.

"The heart of the public today is with the families bereaved by the grave disaster at Tze'elim. The Likud calls for the IDF to be kept out of the political argument and for the matter's removal from the public agenda."

Labor Party spokesman Yitzhak Rabihiye said that "Hanegbi is and remains a pathological liar and a political thug who dances on the blood of soldiers."

Barak, who as chief of General Staff supervised the exercise of the elite General Staff Reconnaissance Unit, responded to the report by saying there is "not a grain of truth" to the accusations against him and the IDF senior staff.

"It's good that the state comptroller agreed to put an end to this web of fabrications," he said at a news conference convened shortly after the report was released.

He added that he is not waiting for an apology from politicians, whom he said have tried to make cynical use of victims as a political tool.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, on a tour of the Jordan Valley, said the report "contains a series of questions," and called on the public to read it and draw its own conclusions.

In the report, Goldberg determined that "there is no place to say that the chief of General Staff left the site in haste" before the wounded were treated. Even if he left before they were all evacuated, "there is still no reason to say that he thus prevented the saving of the life of anyone."

Goldberg noted that the number of evacuation helicopters met the requirements. In any case, he said, even if Barak did leave the scene before the two evacuation helicopters, his helicopter could not have helped in the evacuation since it was not suited to the transport of the injured.

According to the report, there is clear evidence that Barak stayed at the scene for at least 45 minutes after the accident, and was present after two evacuation helicopters had landed and five doctors and at least nine medics were attending to the casualties...

The accusations of Barak's poor conduct were raised in a 1995 Yediot Aharonot report based on the testimony of wounded soldiers who said many had come to help but Barak stood in place with his arms folded...

In the report, Goldberg also clears all of those investigated in the accident from obstruction of justice, including accusations they had coordinated testimony or that the training area had been cleared of evidence. He also said there was no evidence of people being promoted to buy their silence.

He was referring among others to Maj.-Gen. Amiram Levine, who was promoted after the accident to OC Northern Command. Regarding safety procedures, Goldberg determined they were not implemented properly by the unit commander.

In concluding the report, the comptroller emphasized the need to improve and renew security procedures in the IDF, and ensure that instructions are clear..."

MKs comment on Barak's 'blood libel'

ARUTZ7 3/15/99: "Whoever says that Barak has come out of this story white as snow is greatly exaggerating." So said Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman Uzi Landau today, regarding the publication today of the final report on the Tse'elim accident.

Five soldiers were killed during a training drill at Tse'elim Air Force Base in the Negev in November 1992, and Ehud Barak - who was there in his capacity of IDF Chief of Staff to observe the exercise - had been accused of not aiding the wounded and of leaving the scene before they were evacuated to the hospital.

State Comptroller Justice Eliezer Goldberg, author of today's report, wrote that it had not been proven that Barak left the site before the wounded were evacuated. He further wrote that there are conflicting testimonies on whether Barak offered aid to the wounded or not.

Barak himself said that he was involved at the time in higher-level coordination activities, as befitting his rank. Justice Goldberg wrote that it has been shown that Barak remained at the scene of the tragedy for at least 45 minutes, until after the arrival of doctors and helicopter-ambulances.

Goldberg summarized this chapter by writing, "Even if Barak left after the helicopters had landed but before the evacuation of all the wounded, it still cannot be said that this prevented the saving of one of the wounded." The report claims that the way in which Barak defined responsibilities for the exercise "was plagued with vagueness."

Landau said, "Three issues were dealt with here: Barak's actions at the site, his departure, and his overall responsibility. Regarding his departure, he was totally cleared. Regarding his actions, there were different testimonies, and so the report didn't take a stand.

As far as the third issue is concerned, the report said that he did not define the chain of command clearly enough... If Netanyahu had been the subject of this report, the Labor party would have had a field day with him."

Minister Tzachi Hanegbi's initial response to the Tse'elim report:

"Ehud Barak must withdraw his candidacy for Prime Minister," because the report did not unambiguously "clear away the cloud of suspicion" over Barak's actions during the Tse'elim accident.

Hanegbi was among the first to make Barak's actions a subject of debate years ago when he coined the phrase "Ehud Barach [Ehud ran away]," and Labor figures have been demanding that he apologize for such.

Ehud Barak called a press conference this afternoon, at which he said that the report "brings to a final end the libel that has been concocted against me."

Families call report 'whitewash';
others say "it’s the end of the affair"

HA'ARETZ 3/16/99: "I am very disappointed with the report. In my opinion, it is a big whitewash," Rani Shifran, father of Sergeant Shimri Shifran who was killed in the 1992 Tze'elim military accident, told Ha'aretz yesterday.

"After four years of investigation I expected a more serious report, which would relate in detail to the problems presented and not whitewash them.

"What we got is a description of the event, not a document examining the different versions and ruling between them," Shifran said hours after being handed the report by State Comptroller Eliezer Goldberg.

Shifran said, however, that he did not think the bereaved families would try any further legal action in the matter. "We are tired. We view this as the conclusion of the investigation," he said.

"We were hoping for a different ending. I expected the report to relate to the points we raised after the accident, mainly to the changes in the testimony [between that given to the Einan commission and that given in the military police investigation].

"That is not what we received. I can now understand why the previous state comptroller, Miriam Ben Porat, refused to sign a report on the incident."

Shlomo Cohen, father of Staff Sergeant Arik Cohen, also killed in the exercise, said:

"This is a sad day for me. On a day like this no one should be happy about being cleared.

"We will continue to live with hard feelings about what happened. We wanted someone to take responsibility, but that did not happen. I said as soon as the accident happened that whoever did this should take off his ranks and go home."

But Cohen also said that he sees the report as the end of the affair. "Six and a half years are enough. Our nerves have been frayed."

Turkey & Israel: no Kurd relations

Ankara's ANATOLIA 3/11/99: "Hikmet Cetin, the Speaker of the Parliament, said on Wednesday that 'Ezer Weizman, the President of Israel, gave assurances that Israel won't set up relations with the terrorist PKK [Workers Party of Kurdistan] organization or with any so-called representative of PKK.

Speaking to the A.A correspondent, Cetin, who arrived in Israel two days ago to pay an official visit, said that he held very intensive and beneficial contacts with the Israeli officials.

Cetin said Israeli President Weizman and he discussed the bilateral relations and the regional issues at their meeting.

Noting that the issue of struggle against terrorism was put into the agenda of their meeting, Cetin said, "we discussed that Israel, which suffered a lot from terrorism, should show understanding to Turkey's struggle against terrorism and that Turkey never accepts a relation with the terrorist organization or with any of its so-called representative."