a donkey carrying a Katyusha here or there

[meliss]

"Olmert [Israel's prime minister] was sucked in by the assurances of the chief of staff, Lieutenant General Dan Halutz, who was certain that Hezbollah could be defeated from the air, without endangering ground troops. “Except for a donkey carrying a Katyusha here or there,” he believed the air force’s fighter-bombers could cripple the organization’s capacity to strike at Israel."

Does it mean that the air force’s fighter-bombers could cripple everything but a donkey carrying a Katyusha here or there?

Source: Rise and Kill First by Ronen Bergman.

 

[Skrej]

Not exactly. They believed that through air-power alone, they could mostly eliminate Hezbollah's ability to attack Israel. There might be a few rockets left still capable of being launched at Israel, but most would be destroyed.

The bit about being strapped to donkeys probably isn't meant literally. It's a disparaging comment about Hezbollah's fighting prowess - they'd be reduced to using donkeys in a modern day war against planes and tanks. You need to recognize that the Katyusha missile system is supposed to be a self-propelled mobile rocket battery.