Israel s interior minister criticized the panel investigating last summer s Lebanon war. Roni Bar-On said Monday that the findings of the Winograd Commission were distorted by media pressure aimed at satisfying public opinion, Ha aretz reported. In an interim report released a month ago, the commission harshly criticized key political and military decision-makers, including Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz, for their handling of the Second Lebanon War At a meeting of the Israel Bar Association in Eilat, Bar-On called the report incoherent. He also criticized the report’s implications. “I sit in the security Cabinet now that there are deliberations over Gaza, and I’m telling you, the security Cabinet is now speaking ‘Winogradian.’ Everyone speaks for an hour so that he can tell the probe committee that ‘I voted for, but was actually against,’ ” Bar-On said, referring to testimonies of officials before the commission who said they had been against going to war but did not vote against it.
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