Memoir excerpt recounting gas‑mask planning and Israeli chief‑of‑staff appointment

response, or an American one, on an incomparably greater scale. It would also totally isolate Saddam internationally and end any chance of peeling off Arab support for the Americans. It was my nearly 100-per-cent caveat that prompted a tense debate within the cabinet. Even if the probability of a chemical attack was microscopic, any risk of civilians being subjected to terror, panic and very possibly agonizing death meant that the government had to take precautions. The obvious first step would be to distribute gas masks. But in a series of meetings with Misha and Dan, I emphasized this was not a decision that could be taken in isolation. By handing out gas masks, we might actually raise the probability of a chemical attack. We also had to make sure as a matter of urgency that we had a workable military option to attack Iraq’s Scud launchers. By early November, I was dealing both with plans for distributing the gas masks and preparations for a possible military operation. So when I got a call asking me to report to Shamir’s office in Jerusalem, I assumed he wanted to talk about Iraq. “How are things?” he asked. But when I began by filling him in on the plans to distribute the gas-masks, he interrupted me. “I called you here,” he said, “because I wanted you to know that we’ve decided that when Dan leaves next April, we want you to replace him as chief-of-staff.” Briefly and unusually tongue-tied, I said: “Thank you, Prime Minister’. The news was made public the next morning. A few days later, it was ratified by the government. There was only one vote against, from a former chief of staff who was now Shamir’s Agriculture Minister: Raful Eitan. I was one of rare instances in all my years in the army when I took a step back, appreciating a moment which felt special. It was not only, or even mainly, a matter of a personal ambition fulfilled. More a sense that I was being given the opportunity to apply everything I’d experienced and learned in the army, from the day I first joined Sayeret Matkal as an 18-year-old, to improve the security and safeguard the future of Israel. I know that sounds corny. But, while the momentum toward war in Iraq almost immediately crowded out everything else again, that was truly how I felt. 231 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_028079