Lt. Col. Aviezer Yaari, the head of the Syria, Lebanon and Iraq desk of the Israeli army’s military intelligence in 1973, was reprimanded for suggesting several days before the Yom Kippur War that the Egyptian and Syrian military exercises then under way might well be preparations for a combined strike, newly declassified material from the Agranat Commission of Inquiry revealed Wednesday.
“After that I grew more cautious in my estimations,” Yaari said.
His testimony to the commission, revealed 39 years to the day the war ended, was part of a bulk of material that included testimony from the chief of the General Staff, his deputy, a senior military intelligence officer and ministers Yigal Allon and Yisrael Galili.
Deputy Chief of the General Staff Maj. Gen. Israel Tal told the commission that had Syria not committed an elementary blunder in land warfare, Israel would likely have lost the Golan Heights, the newly released material also revealed.
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