Pressure off Olmert after Lebanon war report

By Dan Williams and Ari Rabinovitch

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert looks certain to survive pressure to resign after a generally critical report on Wednesday endorsed key decisions he took during the 2006 war in Lebanon.

The government-appointed Winograd Commission was scathing on the general conduct of the conflict but largely spared Olmert, disappointing rivals who had been positioning themselves for a resignation that could have triggered a snap election.

Signaling that he planned to weather the storm over what the panel called "serious failings" by political and army leaders, Olmert's office said he would implement its recommendations, as he did after the five-member team made similarly damning judgments in an interim report last year.

He should also be free to pursue new, U.S.-sponsored peace negotiations with the Palestinians -- a relief for President George W. Bush for whom an Israeli election would all but wreck chances of a deal during his last year in the White House.

"The pressure is off," Olmert's recently retired national security adviser Ilan Mizrahi told Reuters.

"All in all, the findings let him off the hook," said Israeli analyst Mark Heller. "Most of the criticism that had been directed against him was not made on legitimate grounds."

Retired Supreme Court justice Eliahu Winograd told a news conference transmitted live by Israel's main broadcasters: "We found serious failings and shortcomings in the decision-making processes and staff work in political and military structures."

Most Israelis have already written off the war, launched after Hezbollah guerrillas seized two Israeli soldiers and killed eight, as an ill-thought-out debacle that dented the reputation of a military machine used to battlefield victory.