First crack in Olmert coalition after war inquiry

JERUSALEM, May 1 (Reuters) A member of Ehud Olmert's cabinet quit today, opening the first crack in Israel's government after the prime minister vowed to ride out a scathing reprimand by an inquiry into last year's costly Lebanon war.

Eitan Cabel, a minister without portfolio from the Israeli leader's main governing partner, the Labour Party, told a news conference: ''I can no longer sit in a government headed by Ehud Olmert.'' Cabel said Olmert ''must resign'' after a commission probing the inconclusive war against Hezbollah fighters listed yesterday severe failings on the part of the premier, Defence Minister Amir Peretz of Labour and the army chief, who has already quit.

Opposition politicians were also vocal in their demands for Olmert to step down. Newspaper headlines spoke of a ''noose tightening around his neck'' and a ''gun to his head''.

However, few in the governing coalition seemed ready to face a new election and none of Olmert's rivals within his Kadima party has moved publicly against him.

''I stand behind Olmert's leadership,'' Public Security Minister Avi Dichter of Kadima said at a ceremony attended by Olmert, welcoming Israel's new police chief.

Olmert -- the focus of several corruption investigations -- spoke in soft tones at the event about the need for police to probe suspected crime by public officials, and avoided any mention of the war inquiry. He appeared confident and smiled.

The Winograd commission said the cabinet rubber-stamped the decision to go to war but Olmert bore ''supreme responsibility'' for launching the air, sea and land assaults without a proper plan after Hezbollah seized two Israeli soldiers on July 12.

The government-appointed panel, however, stopped short of recommending that Olmert step down. A snap Israel Radio opinion poll after its interim report yesterday examining the start of the war found that 69 per cent of Israelis wanted Olmert to go.

''MANY MISTAKES'' After a series of sleaze and graft allegations, many Israelis are disillusioned with their political class and some saw the findings on the war as the final straw for Olmert.

Olmert, as widely expected, accepted responsibility for ''many mistakes'' during the 34-day campaign in which Hezbollah rained 4,000 rockets on Israel and Israeli warplanes pounded southern Beirut, one of the militant group's strongholds.

But he said he would not resign, insisting he was the best man to put things right.

Some 1,200 people were killed in Lebanon, including about 900 civilians, while 117 Israeli troops died along with 41 civilians caught in the rocket strikes in northern Israel.

At his news conference, Cabel said he would try to persuade Labour to pull out of its power-sharing partnership with Kadima.

Labour has 19 of the Olmert coalition's 78 seats in the 120-member parliament.

A protest rally on Thursday in Tel Aviv, which organisers hope will be reminiscent of mass demonstrations that brought down Israeli leaders after the failings of previous wars, will give Olmert an opportunity to gauge public sentiment.

The protest was called by reservist citizen soldiers mobilised for the war and parents of some of those killed.

Aside from former prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu of the rightist opposition Likud party, Olmert also has potential challengers on his own team -- one name much cited is Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, though some question her experience.

REUTERS KD PM1611