Israeli Military Chief: Fight for Decisive Victory By barbara opall-rome Published: 14 Oct 2009 12:50
SHIZAFON ARMY BASE, Israel - The chances are "not small" that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) again will be called into battle, and when combat begins, there must be no question as to the outcome of operations, the nation's top commander here said Oct. 13.
"Today, we enjoy relative quiet, but I can't say for how long it will remain that way ... If we act, we need to operate in a way that there won't be any questions about who won and who lost," said Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, IDF chief of general staff.
Speaking to new Armor Corps officers at this Negev desert training base, Ashkenazi said fighting spirit and front-line equipment - as important as they are - are insufficient for achieving what he termed decisive victory.
"It's not enough if we are infused with the IDF spirit, and it's not enough to have Merkava MkIV [tanks]," he said. "We need to have the knowledge and the judgment to lead people into battle."
Ashkenaziand Maj. Gen. Sami Turgeman, the IDF's new Land Forces Command chief, and other senior officers monitored a demonstration of combined arms maneuvering warfare, the culmination of an intensive seven-month officer's course held here at the IDF's Armor School.
Combat disciplines participating in the demonstration included armor, combat engineers, artillery, infantry and field intelligence, all supported by Air Force F-16s, Cobra attack helicopters, utility helicopters, a C-130 aircraft and anti-aircraft units.
As for equipment, the demonstration featured a number of systems deployed in combat earlier this year in the Gaza Strip, including Mk4 tanks equipped with the Trophy active protection system and connected, via the Ma'anak command-and-control system, to the Army's digitized C4I network.
Other relatively new technologies included the Gil anti-tank missile, the Carpet fuel air explosive mine-breaching system, the Skylark tactical battalion-level UAV and the man-portable Matador door-buster.
While Ashkenazi expressed satisfaction with the demonstrated abilities of the new officers, he warned, "Here it was easy. You did a lot of rehearsals and dry runs, but the enemy was not here.
"It's a heavy responsibility to be a commander in the IDF, because we are a fighting army. ... We're either in a war or preparing for war."
