OCCUPIED JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Monday that he assumed full responsibility for failures highlighted in a report last week by a government-appointed commission into the 2006 Lebanon war. "The Winograd Commission said what it had to say, and what it said was very harsh. I bear full responsibility for all the failures - I never tried to shirk that," Olmert told an extraordinary session of Parliament that convened to discuss the report. "I will use this responsibility to fix mistakes, and this is what I have been doing since the day after the war ended.
Olmert's speech was interrupted by calls for him to resign - which he has refused to do - from MPs and relatives of fallen soldiers.
Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu, himself a former premier, told Parliament the war was a failure and that Olmert should step down "because he bears sole responsibility."
"Would the captain of the Titanic have been given another command?" he asked.