Although on the operative and tactical level, the Research Department has often proven quite successful, on the strategic and political front it has committed crucial failures which had a decisive impact on the course of
Israeli and
regional history. Above all others, the failure to warn that the
Yom Kippur War was imminent, remains the Research Department's greatest blunder. The
Agranat Commission, which investigated the failures of the war, very severely criticized Research in particular and the Intelligence Community, in general. A host of high-ranking intelligence officers were dismissed, most notably Aman Director,
Aluf Eli Zeira, and head of Research, Brigadier-General Aryeh Shalev. ==Further reading==