place in the Airya. | realized I was the only available replacement with a similar

place in the Airya. | realized I was the only available replacement with a similar background, and sayeret experience. But I was still gaining brigade command experience. And I couldn’t help feeling the role was intended as a kind of rest- and-recovery cure because of my illness, not too different from the reason Uzi had been given the job. Still, I did need rest and recovery. Even if fully healthy, I’m not sure I could have convinced Motta to change his mind. In my weakened state, I had no chance. Skeptical though I was about the job, it opened up a new world to me. The kirya itself was not new territory. But now, I became exposed to how how the huge range of intelligence information we gathered was collated, evaluated, assessed and ultimately applied. Helping with this process was my new assignment. There were, in fact, two of us. We were both colonels and together we provided the intelligence background for military operations. I had the post on inside the military intelligence department. My opposite number was in the operations department — the more senior role, in a way, because he had a more direct link to the people actually doing the operations. He was a friend from officers’ school: Dovik Tamari’s younger brother, Shai. Once a week, Shai and I put together an assessment report. Then, we’d join Motta’s operations meeting with the general staff, often attended by the man who’d followed Dayan as defense minister, Shimon Peres. The analysis of military intelligence included separate teams for Egypt and Syria, Jordan and Lebanon, Iraq and other neighboring states, as well as other countries and superpower relations. It relied on all our raw intelligence material, from both military intelligence and Mossad, as well as academic and specialist literature. Each desk dealt not just with military issues, but political and economic developments. I was responsible, along with Shai and a few others, for bringing all this together. This meant frequent meetings with members of the analysis teams. For the first six months or so, I barely uttered a word in these sessions. I listened, not just absorbing the information but getting to understand the way the analysts worked and thought. Our whole intelligence department was responsible for drafting an annual strategic assessment for the army and the government. The final report was written by Shlomo Gazit, who had succeeded Eli Zeira as head of military intelligence. Before we sent it to print, he held a long meeting, inviting the views of all the military intelligence officers. The focus in 1976, just three years after the war, was on the risks of a new surprise attack. At the end of the discussion, however, he said: ““We know we run a real danger for the country if 163 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_028011