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JERUSALEM - Ehud Olmert's decision to go to war in response to abductions of soldiers was taken as early as March 2006, according to a leak of his evidence to the Commission investigating the war.
The report, which Israeli officials said was broadly in line with what the
Prime Minister has already told the Cabinet, means that the military strategy was decided more than three months before it was triggered by Hizbollah's abductions of two soldiers on the northern border in July.
Mr Olmert partly used his appearance two weeks ago before the Winograd commission to defend himself against charges that the government stumbled unprepared into the five week war.
But the report will fuel claims by some international critics of the operation - which failed to release the abducted soldiers or eliminate Hizbollah's fighting strength despite the high death toll-that Israel and perhaps the US had for some time decided in favour of a military confrontation with the Lebanese guerilla group when provoked.
The report, in Haaretz, also suggests that Mr Olmert was told in May that Lebanon was ready to enforce UN resolution 1559, which prescribed the disarming of Hizbollah, in return for withdrawal from Shaba Farms, the border zone occupied by Israel which is projected as a casus belli by Hizbollah but which is claimed by both Syria and Lebanon.
It says he passed the message to President Bush, Tony Blair and President Jacques Chirac.
According to the paper, Mr Olmert told the Commission that he had held a series of meetings after becoming Prime Minister and had decided that in the event of abductions there should be air attacks, accompanied by a limited ground operation.
He told the military that he wanted to decide ahead of any such event rather than make a snap decision at the time.
He also defended the much criticised expansion of the ground invasion in the last 48 hours of the war after the UN had agreed on a ceasefire - an operation which cost the lives of 33 Israeli soldiers.
He said the objective had been to influence the draft UN resolution, which he regarded as too unfavourable to Israel.
Israeli officials have repeatedly pointed out that the UN has determined that Shaba Farms was part of Syria, and argue that it could not hand it back to Lebanon without contravening its resolutions.
If it is in Syria, they say, it is, like the Golan Heights, part of its unresolved dispute with Syria.
- INDEPENDENT