Reservists to Halutz: You Kept Us From Winning´ 10:27 Aug 21, '06 / 27 Av 5766 by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu

Hundreds of reservists told Chief of Staff Dan Halutz Sunday of colossal failures in planning, intelligence, equipment and rescue efforts. A senior officer said, "We were guilty of arrogance."

The reservists who met with Lt.-Gen. Halutz complained that the war resulted in a crisis of faith in commanding officers. They spoke of lack of food and water, poor equipment and lack of responsibility. "You prevented us from winning," they told him.

The Chief of Staff and senior commanders have been praising the armed forces for operations in the war, in which nearly 120 soldiers were killed and hundreds were wounded.

One officer said last week that food and water supplies were adequate and were lacking only in rare instances or when fighting prevented supply trucks from arriving.

But reservists in the field told a different story to Lt.-Gen. Halutz. One soldier said they were without food for more than 24 hours. Another said his company had to wait until 6 p.m. Saturday evening to eat their first Sabbath meal. Others said they drank from local wells, and some soldiers admitted they had to break into local Lebanese stores in order to overcome hunger between battles with Hizbullah terrorist guerillas.