Lebanon War Was a Success, Says Olmert

Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, toured his country's border with Lebanon yesterday and declared last year's war with Hizbullah a success.

On the first anniversary of the war Mr Olmert tried to strike an upbeat note in spite of the fact that two Israeli soldiers remain in the hands of Hizbullah.

"We had great achievements in this war," Mr Olmert said, speaking near a road that was hit by one of the nearly 4,000 rockets that Hizbullah fired into Israel last summer. "We also had not a few weaknesses and failures that we are trying to deal with ... to fix, to deploy, to renovate and to strengthen."

Mr Olmert's view that the war was a success is not shared by many in Israel, who see the conflict almost as a defeat. The prime minister has already been chastised by the Winograd committee for his conduct in the war, which was described as a "severe failure".

The committee has investigated only the government and army's performance in the initial days of the conflict and has yet to report on the rest of the conflict. Analysts believe that Mr Olmert will be unable to remain in office once the final report is delivered next month.

The war began on July 12 2006 when Hizbullah guerrillas ambushed an Israeli patrol on the border, killing three soldiers and capturing two. Soon after Mr Olmert declared that he intended to free the captives and remove Hizbullah from southern Lebanon. Israel then began a war in which it failed it defeat Hizbullah.

Israel lost 119 soldiers and 43 civilians while Hizbullah lost between 250 and 500 fighters. The brunt of the fighting was borne by Lebanese civilians, with more than 1,000 killed.

Michael Williams, the UN Middle East envoy, said the UN had held "many, many meetings" with Hizbullah representatives to bring the release of the captives but no progress had been made. "It causes me pain to report to you that those negotiations have not so far met with success," he told Israel Radio.

During his tour yesterday Mr Olmert tried to calm rumors that Israel was on the verge of war with Syria, seen as the sponsor of Hizbullah. "We really hope that the conditions will be ripe to allow for the establishment of negotiations with Syria and we don't intend and don't want to bring about any friction with Syrians," he said. "We don't have any interest in fighting the Syrians and we hope that they don't have any interest in fighting us."

Since the war Israel's army has begun a reform program to revitalize its capability to fight conventional war after years suppressing the Palestinian uprising.