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TEL AVIV, Israel, Sept. 22 (UPI) -- Israel has embarked on the most sweeping shuffle of its top military and intelligence echelons in which virtually every senior officer will be replaced because their appointments are expiring, a move analysts say indicates no attack on Iran is imminent. "This will result in one of the largest reshuffles in the Israeli security system ever and will probably include more than 200 of the most senior officers," Oxford Analytica said.
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Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak has in recent days named a new chief of staff and his deputy and promoted a handful of generals to other senior commands. Among other key positions to be filled are the chief of operations on the General Staff and the heads of the Home Front and Central Commands whose terms expire in February. The changeover will go down the chain of command to battalion level.
The head of the Mossad, Israel's foreign intelligence service, and the General Security Service, known as Shin Bet, are also scheduled to leave office by February.
The current Mossad chief, veteran spymaster and former army Gen. Meir Dagan, is due to step down after eight years. Dagan has survived several changes in political regime since 2002 when he was appointed by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, his old army buddy.
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu extended Dagan's term by a year in 2009 but has rebuffed his efforts for another extension. That possibly stems from the unwelcome furor over the assassination of a Hamas chieftain in Dubai in January, an operation Dubai authorities laid at the Mossad's door.
It is unlikely that a changeover on such an unprecedented scale would have been allowed had Israel had plans to launch pre-emptive attacks on Iran's nuclear infrastructure.
Netanyahu had wanted to limit the changes in command as much as possible to avoid major upheaval within the military and the security services as Israel confronts Iran over its nuclear program and prepares for a new conflict with Hezbollah, Iran's main proxy in the Levant.
But Barak is pushing the changeover through as swiftly as possible, rather than stagger it, because he wants new commanders in place in case the military has to go to war with Iran, or Hezbollah, or both.
Even so, says Oxford Analytica, "If the process continues at its current pace, it will take, by most estimates, at least a year from now before the inevitable turf wars and other bureaucratic problems that accompany changeovers on such as scale are resolved and the relationship between the new commanders is consolidated."
Barak's appointment of the new chief of staff, who will hold office for three years, was approved Sept. 5, six months ahead of schedule, underlining the minister's drive to condense the command handovers into as short a time frame as possible.
The new chief of staff, 33-year army veteran Lt. Gen. Yoav Galant, will take over in February when the term of the outgoing commander, Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, expires.
A deputy chief of staff has yet to be appointed to replace Maj. Gen. Benny Gantz, who decided to retire from the army after Barak passed him over as Ashkenazi's successor.
On Sept. 16, Barak named Maj. Gen. Aviv Kochavi, a former paratrooper who has long been considered a rising star, as head of Military Intelligence, replacing the veteran Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin.
If Barak, Israel's most decorated soldier and a former chief of staff himself, had hoped to minimize disruption within the military by moving fast, he failed.
That changeover took place amid a storm of controversy and Byzantine intrigue among senior officers that involved a forged document suggesting that Galant had sought to smear his rivals to become the nation's 20th chief of staff.
The fallout will likely resonate for months to come, with a committee of inquiry investigating the conduct of senior officers in the murky affair, deepening public disquiet about the once-vaunted Israeli armed forces.
The scandal was the worst the military has experienced in many years and underlined the extent to which it has fallen from grace as the protector of the embattled nation and its most treasured institution in recent years.
Unseemly squabbles among generals for top commands that guarantee them high political office or defense industry directorships compound the military's woes.
