Shai Vaknin, Director General of the State Comptroller's Office, spoke today (Wednesday) with Udi Segal and Anat Davidov on 103fm about the difficulties the State Comptroller encountered in examining the failures of the army and the National Security Council in the events of October 7.
He pointed to former Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi as a factor that made it difficult for the Comptroller's Office to investigate the events.
Vaknin was asked whether Herzi Halevi constituted a barrier to the State Comptroller's ability to examine the failures - and replied: "The answer is unequivocally yes. Ultimately, from the beginning of the journey when the State Comptroller decided to enter the audit, we did not come from a position of arrogance and conceit. We did it with a sense of shame and pity, we established a graduated system. And there was foot-dragging here, and there was a desire to do everything so that we would not enter the examination of the core of the failure, unfortunately. We were given issues in an envelope.".
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According to him, with the arrival of the new Chief of Staff, Eyal Zamir, things changed quickly: "Factually, in the first week, the Deputy Chief of Staff came in and immediately picked up the phone and said: 'Let's close everything.' When we want, we can do anything.".
Regarding the letter recently sent to the National Security Council, urging it to cooperate with the work of the Comptroller, the Director General said: "We are not going against the National Security Council, we are enlightening its eyes, both through the head of the National Security Council and through the government secretariat, to hand over the documents in stages and without conditions. We are in a long process with it because it is a very significant body for examining the failure of October 7.".
""Unfortunately, the pace does not allow us to do things on the schedules we planned. We issued the letter to come and say: 'Friends, you are not harming state criticism. There is a law that says what materials are handed over and when, and no conditions are set for us.'".
He was asked if he believed that the Comptroller's Office's investigation was not intended to undermine the establishment of a state investigation committee - and he replied in the negative: "Establishing a state investigation committee is a political decision by the government. We, by virtue of the authority of the State Comptroller, are the only body today that conducts objective, independent and systemic audits. The biggest lacuna in the IDF and Shin Bet investigations is that there is no overview. No one reflects a complete picture of the situation. As of today, we are the only body.".
