Page 170 - Airpower in 20th Century - Doctrines and Employment

170 airpower in 20 Century doCtrines and employment - national experienCes
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border into Syria. Since I was in the command and control position most of the time,
this was implemented indirectly by me and the policy was screened to all levels,
even when I was absent. It seems that Syria understood this message very well, and
there were very few attempts on their side to intercept our aircraft. It seems they used
to take minimum risks and action at times it was less potential for encounters. Even
the surface-to-air missiles did not create high risks to our aircrafts.
On Monday, 7 June, there were first frictions between Syrian ground forces and
our ground forces in the east front. The Northern Command demanded an attack on
the surface-to-air missiles on Tuesday. This was discussed at a meeting at Northern
Command, with the participation of the Minister of Defense Sharon, Chief of Staff
Eitan, and me. Northern Command claimed that it could reach the Beirut-Damascus
road by Tuesday, thus accomplishing the goals. The attack on the surface-to-air mis-
siles was therefore postponed without taking the chance of deteriorating the war.
My recommendation was also to postpone the attack for an additional 24 hours
because we learned about upcoming changes in the Syrian air defense set up, and I
wanted to be sure about the set up in order to avoid surprises while the attack was
being launched, and to get a better understanding of the Syrian policy – where were
they planning the center of gravity of their defense. Chief of Staff Eitan supported
my recommendation and the minister approved it. On the other hand, I instructed
head of operations, Col. Sela, to allocate and arm fighter planes for Tuesday in case
the situation deteriorated and we could be forced to attack the surface-to-air missiles
even on Tuesday. We set aside almost 100 high performance aircrafts (mostly F-4s)
to be prepared for this potential situation.
During the night, the SA-6 division was transferred from the Golan Heights to
the Lebanon area in order to thicken the surface-to-air missile set up, increasing their
number to over 19 batteries. I was very happy we decided to postpone the attack to
Wednesday. This let us understand that the Syrians were planning to restrict them-
selves to the Lebanon area, or else they would not have weakened their defense in
the Golan, thus creating a better penetration option towards Damascus.
On Tuesday, the friction on the ground increased between the Syrian forces and
the eastern command under M/G Yanush Ben Gal. Each side blamed the other for
the friction. However, when both forces face each other under a lot of tension, with
mutual suspicion. Even a simple test of guns could cause an eruption. It is therefore
difficult to determine who initiated the friction that intensified on Tuesday.
During the night meeting on Tuesday, it seemed that the ground goals were not
achieved, so there was a consensus around recommending to the government to at-
tack the surface-to-air missiles, after assuming that deteriorating to an overall war
with Syria was of minor chances due to the transferring the SA-6 division from the
Golan to Lebanon.
Since the possibility of war with Syria was still an option as an output of attack-
ing the surface-to-air missiles operated by Syrian soldiers, it was the right decision