have been able, if he so wished, to order the Egyptian forces to in-
vade Israel and cut off the Negev without the Israel Defense Forces
(IDF) being ready for it. MI became aware of this only four days
later. Operationally, Israel responded as required to such a gathering
threat. It upgraded the military alert and mobilized its reserve units.
In July 1962 Egypt conducted an overt launch of two types of bal-
listic missiles without MI providing any early warning of the advance
of a ballistic threat against Israel.
In the years preceding the Six-Day War, MI’s single-minded eval-
uation was that Nasser would not initiate a crisis as long as his army
was bogged down in Yemen; in February 1967 MI asserted that a war
was not to be expected before 1970. A few months before the start of
the crisis leading to the Six-Day War, MI analysts estimated in the
National Intelligence Estimate of 1966 that the Egyptians would not
be able to risk a war in the next five years. This proved wrong, as in
May 1967 Nasser mobilized Egyptian troops in the Sinai Desert after
requesting that the United Nations force there evacuate the area.
In 1973 MI analysts had the duty of providing an early warning be-
fore the outbreak of a war, but they failed to assess accurately when
Egypt and Syria would strike Israel. This failure became known as
the Yom Kippur Warsurprise (seeCONCEPT).
Between the end of 1973 and 1975 the MI Research Division is-
sued several early warnings, some of them without foundation, on the
intention of Egypt and/or Syria to resume fire. Later it added the eval-
uation that Egypt was not yet ready for peace, and thus contributed to
the lack of readiness of Israel’s political and military decision mak-
ers for Anwar Sadat’s peace initiative in 1977. MI’s evaluations were
the main basis for the development of the perception of the threat of
the “eastern front” and for the enormous resources that Israel in-
vested in constructing means to contend with it.
The Israeli intelligence community failed to predict the outbreak of
the Iraqi war against Iran in 1980, nor did it foresee the end of that
war in 1988. With the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq War in 1980, when it
became clear that this front was collapsing, the “eastern front” threat
was replaced by the “strategic balance” threat of Syria, which also
was not very real.
During 1981 and 1982, prior to the Peace for Galilee Operation, the
Mossadand the Center for Political Researchoverestimated theASSESSMENT FAILURES•1706-102 (02) A-G.qxd 3/24/06 7:23 AM Page 17