My own part in the Lebanon war would change dramatically as a result of

Chapter Twelve My own part in the Lebanon war would change dramatically as a result of that last military exercise in the Sinai. Arik Sharon was now Minister of Defense, and he came for the final afternoon. From his experience as a frontline commander — in 1956, 1967 and 1973 — he knew the dunes and wadis and sprawling expanses of sand as well as any general in Israel. Watching our intricate mini-war draw to its close, he made no effort to hide his enthusiasm for the kind of quick, assertive battlefield maneuvers he’d long championed. But more than that, his closest aide soon began sounding me out on my views about the long-term organization, force balance and funding for the Israeli military. A few weeks later, Arik offered me a promotion: a return to the kirya, as a two- star general, to become head of planning for the armed forces. I don’t know why he chose me: the Sinai exercise perhaps, the fact he knew I'd studied “large and complex organizations” at Stanford, or maybe just the fact our paths had first crossed two decades earlier when I was in Sayeret Matkal. But even though it meant leaving my division command, especially tough since the final Sinai withdrawal was approaching, it was an offer I never contemplated turning down. Not just because of the second star on my uniform. Ever since the 1973 war, along with a few other senior officers including Dan Shomron, I had been making the case for a shift to more mobile and less vulnerable forces and weapons systems. I saw the new role as a chance to help encourage that critically important change. There was just one hitch: all senior military assignments required the formal approval of the chief-of-staff, my old friend Raful Eitan. Raful did manage to delay things for several weeks. At one point, he even brought to bear a quality I’d never suspected he had: a sense of humor. “OK, Pll agree to promote Barak,” he told Arik. The next day, he said he’d meant /itan Barak — a very good commander, by the way, who had been one of my instructors in officers’ school. Arik insisted, however. My appointment went through. And one, unanticipated result was that I didn’t just play the field command role I’d anticipated, from our Cinerama deployments, in Arik’s toweringly ambitious, ill-planned and ultimately disastrous war in Lebanon. I became part of months of planning discussions in the Airya before our tanks finally rumbled across the northern border on the morning of June 6, 1982. 191 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_028039