Inquiry Committee Dealing with War to Review Complaints Against Sharon

The committee of inquiry into the Yom Kippur War, headed by Supreme Court Justice Simon Agranat, will review complaints against (Res.) Gen. Ariel (Arik) Sharon, commander of the division that broke through Egyptian lines and established an Israeli bridgehead on the west bank of the Suez Canal, it was learned today. The complaints have been lodged by Gen. Shmuel Gonnen, Sharon’s superior, who was the target of charges by Sharon published in newspapers and magazines here and abroad after the war ended.

Sharp differences of opinion over the conduct of the war developed between Sharon and Gonnen and other members of the Israeli high command. Sharon publicly accused the Israeli military leadership of making battlefield decisions on the basis of politics. He himself has been counter charged with politicking and was relieved of his command on the Egyptian front two weeks ago. Sharon, founder of Likud, was elected to the Knesset Dec. 31.

Gonnen, who had replaced Sharon as commander of the southern command three months before the Yom Kippur War, has filed his own charges against the popular reserves general. They were submitted to Chief of Staff Gen. David Elazar, himself a target of Sharon. Elazar forwarded them to the Agranat committee. He reportedly decided not to deal with the complaints himself because he saw no point in initiating disciplinary action while the conduct of the war was the subject of an official inquiry.

One of the complaints against Sharon stemmed from an article in the Feb. 1974 edition of Harper’s magazine by Amos Perlmutter. The author, who described himself as a personal friend of Sharon, quoted the Sinai commander as having said that “This war was terribly mismanaged…. The casualties we lost in the first two days were without justification.” Elsewhere in the article, Sharon was sharply critical of former Chief of Staff Gen. Haim Barlev, Deputy Premier Yigal Allon and the entire Labor government including his one-time mentor, Defense Minister Moshe Dayan.

Gonnen met with Premier Golda Meir last week and presented his complaints against Sharon, the newspaper Yediot Achronot reported today. The meeting took place before Sharon gave interviews to two local newspapers in which he called for Elazar’s resignation. The Agranat committee is mandated to inquire only into the initial stages of the Yom Kippur War–when Israeli forces, rushed to meet the Egyptian-Syrian onslaught, conducted a holding action. But the committee is now examining material and documents relating to a later stage to determine if they are relevant to their inquiry.