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Air Strike at Osirak

Air Strike at Osirak

Air Strike at Osirak

Rumors have been circulating for years that was getting ready to n the fall of 1980, Israeli military launch a pre-emptive attack on ’s emerging nuclear weapons capability. intelligence reported that the Osirak The speculation intensified as Iran prepared to move its uranium enrichment , 12 miles southeast plant into a hardened mountain bunker. Iran continued to resist diplomatic of , would become opera- and economic pressures to cease its quest for an atomic bomb. tional between July and November In February, Israel warned that the window of opportunity for a successful ofI 1981. Iraqi dictator military operation was closing, and an attack could not be delayed much had no need for a reactor for electric longer if it was to be done at all. News reports said the Pentagon believed power production or other peaceful Israel might attack as early as April. purposes; Iraqi oil reserves were ranked There were inevitable comparisons to a situation with marked similarities sixth in the world. 30 years ago, when the wiped out a nuclear reactor in What Saddam really wanted from the just before it was to be activated. This is the story of the air strike at Osirak. reactor was the spent atomic fuel, from which plutonium could be extracted to manufacture the core of an implosion- 58 AIR FORCE Magazine / April 2012 AIR FORCE Magazine Magazine FORCE AIR a policy switch and sought to improve improve to sought and switch policy a the 1950s. Since then, in the French had made technology nuclear Israel’s of , which had also been the source Saddam’s Reactor Baghdad. across tivefallout radioac spread would attack bombing uranium—a with “hot”—fueled and soon. Once the reactor was in operation Israel. be would bomb his for target The bomb. atomic style it hadtobesoon. If theIsraeliswere goingtotake action, Iraq’s nuclearreactorwas abouttogohot. Saddam had gotten his reactor from from reactor his gotten had Saddam If Israel was going to act, it had to be / April 2012 April / - Saddam Hussein in the summer of 1981. 1981. of summer the in Hussein Saddam Map by Tsahi Ben-Ami by Tsahi Map By JohnT. Correll

Copyright Bettman/Corbis/AP Images was was activated in February 1980. In June . agency intelligence Israeli the blamed many This set the project back by six months; Iraq. to shipped be to were they before just France, in sabotage by destroyed were cores reactor two 1979, April In to substitute lower grade “caramel” fuel. appeal Israeli an refusing reactors, the fuel to purposes, military for suitable uranium, enriched highly for demands Osirak. as known be to continued the large reactor and the nuclear both Iraq, complex of Outside regime. previous the from 1958 in takeover their of date the 17), (July Tammuz 17 after II, and leaders renamed the reactors Tammuz I “Osiris” and “Iraq.” Saddam and the combining “Osirak,” was reactor large Iraqi the Tigris River. The French name for in al at a bend Tuwaitha, near complex the plutonium. the separate and fuel provide a plant to the reprocess nuclear Italy, with similar motivations, agreed to grade one-megawatt Isis training reactor. low- a and reactor Osiris 70-megawatt a Iraq In sell to agreed French the 1975, consideration. another was sales weapons from profit Potential up. pass to good too prices favorable at oil of offer the found France reactor, nuclear oil. of supply secure a of embargo was France eager to 1973-1974, obtain oil Arab the following Europe Western and States United the in shortages gasoline severe of wake the In world. Arab the with relations mission leader. mission the as flew Raz site. nuclear Osirak the out took that force strike F-16 the by Iraq into taken route Left: The Utah. AFB, Hill at trained pilots Israeli 12 told, All Shaphir. Capt. Yisrael and Katz, Haggai Capt. Raz, Zeev Col. Lt. Yaffe, Dubi Maj. (l-r) were F-16s American on trained Israelis first Below: The The small Isis/Tammuz II reactor reactor II Isis/Tammuz small The Iraq’s to agreed France 1978, In nuclear a on began work 1976, In a for shopping came Iraq When 59

Photo via Tsahi Ben-Ami The speed and small size of the F-16 limited its vulnerability to enemy fire. With internal fuel capacity plus centerline and wing tanks, the F-16 could go the

Photo viaTsahi Ben-Ami distance without refueling. Israel had precision guided munitions, but “smart” weapons introduced compli- cations, such as the effects of weather and the requirement to fly a stabilized pattern for delivery. Planners decided to keep the mission simple. They calculated that eight bombs directly on target would An F-16 is fueled just before taking off on the Osirak raid—called destroy it, and that 16 well-aimed gravity by the Israelis. bombs dropped at low level would have a 99 percent probability of success. 1980, the first shipment of enriched Begin’s principal supporters were The F-16’s superb computerized bomb uranium arrived in Iraq. , retired general and war sighting system supported the decision Israel appealed to France and Italy hero, and at the time agriculture minister to conduct the attack with conventional to cut off assistance and sought support in Begin’s Cabinet, Foreign Minister gravity bombs. The strike force would without much result from the US and Yitzhak Shamir, Lt. Gen. , consist of eight F-16s, each carrying two others, as Saddam Hussein was not Chief of Staff of Israeli armed forces, Mk 84 2,000-pound bombs, with F-15s yet the international pariah he would and Maj. Gen. , commander flying air cover for them. become after the invasion of of the Israeli Air Force. A 60-foot concrete dome several in 1990. Weizman resigned, and Begin took inches thick covered the Osirak reactor. Even the , Israel’s over the defense ministry portfolio him- Delivered as planned, a 2,000-pound greatest ally, was somewhat favorably self. bomb could punch through that easily. disposed toward Saddam, who went to In July 1980, Israel raised the is- war with Iran in . The sue of the Iraqi reactor in public and The Special Squadron US regarded Iran, which had recently warned that Israel would react to the The F-16s were assigned to a new held 52 Americans hostage for more threat. The decision to strike was made squadron formed at Ramat David Air than a year, as its main enemy in the in secret by Begin and the Cabinet in Base, north of in the Jezreel area. Bucking the trend, CIA director October 1980. Valley. The squadron commander and William J. Casey gave Israel almost Tentative planning to destroy the re- base commander was Col. Iftach Spec- unlimited access to imagery of al actor had begun in 1978. One possible tor, revered in the Israeli Air Force for Tuwaitha from the US KH-11 recon- model was Israel’s long-distance Entebbe having shot down 15 MiGs in the 1973 naissance satellite. raid that rescued captives held in Uganda . (Spector was not a hero The International Atomic Energy in 1976, but that approach—requiring in the eyes of everyone. In 1967, he led Agency reported that the Iraqi reactor ground action and large numbers of the squadron that strafed USS Liberty was not being used for military purposes. troops and big, slow-moving aircraft— in international waters, supposedly by However, IAEA inspections were pa- was scratched as too complicated and mistake, killing 34 Americans during tently worthless. Inspected nations could risky. The US disaster, Desert One, in the Six-Day War.) veto visits from inspectors they did not April 1980, when an Entebbe-style effort Twelve Israeli pilots trained in F-16s like, and Soviets and Hungarians did all failed to free hostages in Tehran, was at Hill AFB, Utah, prior to delivery of inspections in Iraq. Further, inspected also taken into account. the first aircraft. Back in Israel they flew nations could choose which facilities Osirak would be an air operation. It low-level, long-distance exercises. They to show. In the Osirak case, inspectors was more than 600 miles to the nuclear were not told the mission they were train- were not permitted to see the Italian complex at al Tuwaitha, with the ad- ing for, but it was easy to guess. reprocessing lab. versarial nations of and The marginally competent Iranian Air in between. The IAF had never Force made the first attempt to destroy the Plan of Attack flown a mission at that range. Most of Osirak reactor, in September 1980. Two , the hard-line prime its aircraft could not carry a full bomb F-4s attacked with rockets and guns, but minister of Israel, believed the Osirak load that far without refueling en route, did little damage. Saddam sent word that reactor had to be eliminated, but faced and refueling would increase the danger the nuclear effort was directed against divided opinion in his own Cabinet. of discovery or intercept. “the Zionist foe,” not Iran. Among those against a military attack The aircraft chosen for the job became Crews to carry out the Israeli attack was the defense minister, , available by chance. Israel had F-16s were hand-picked by Eitan and Ivry. The and Labor Party leader —a on order from the United States with strike force F-16s were grouped into two former defense minister and challenger delivery due in 1982. However, Israel flights of four. Lt. Col. Zeev Raz would to Begin in the upcoming leapt at an offer to buy F-16s earlier head the mission and fly the lead aircraft election. The opponents feared even a when a sale to Iran was canceled when and Lt. Col. Amir Nachumi would lead successful strike would only postpone the Shah was overthrown. These aircraft the second flight. the problem and would have a disastrous began arriving in July 1980, and Israel Training was well under way when effect on Israel in international public had 53 of them on hand at the time of Spector decided he wanted to fly on opinion. the Osirak mission. the mission. Ivry turned him down, 60 AIR FORCE Magazine / April 2012 Four of the Israeli F-16s line up before takeoff. The strike force comprised eight airplanes, in two flights of four. Photos viaTsahi Ben-Ami

but Spector appealed to Eitan, who the runway and struggled into the air at The F-16s released their flares and supported him. 3:55 p.m., which was 4:55 p.m. in Iraq. chaff to confuse heat-seeking missiles Spector replaced one of the junior and radar. pilots on the team, and flew some F-16 80 Seconds Over Osirak Four miles from the target, the F-16s missions from Ramat David, but did not King , aboard his climbed sharply to 5,000 feet. The tactic receive the full training. yacht in the , saw the F- was to dive from altitude on the target Raz remained mission leader. Spector 16s pass by, headed east. Hussein, a pilot at a speed of more than 600 mph at a would fly as Nachumi’s wingman, put- himself, recognized what they were. He 35-degree angle, releasing the bombs ting him sixth in order on the bomb run. sent a warning message to Iraq, but it was at high velocity from 3,500 feet. The The strike would be on a Sunday, never received by anyone in authority. bombs were fuzed with just enough delay based on an assumption—erroneous as The F-16s and F-15s did not follow a to punch through the concrete dome to it turned out—that the French and Italian straight line to the target. Their dogleg the reactor before exploding. technicians would be taking their day of course was plotted to best avoid detec- Because of the glitch at the initial rest. The F-16s would attack from west tion by Jordanian radar to the north and point, Raz began his dive late and had to east, late in the day, with the setting the Saudi E-3 Airborne Warning and to loop around to realign with the target. sun at their backs. Control System operating to the south. This meant his wingman, Maj. Amos The raid was initially scheduled for They maintained radio silence, flying on Yadlin, bombed first, with Raz drop- May 17, but canceled on an appeal from the Saudi side of the border at 360 knots ping second. The other F-16s followed Peres, who urged Begin to wait until (414 mph) and about 150 feet above the close behind. after the upcoming French elections. desert floor. The F-16s swooped down on the Socialist Francois Mitterand, likely to Shortly before crossing into Iraq, Osirak complex at 6:35 p.m. Iraqi time. be the new president of France, had about 55 minutes into the flight, they From first bomb to last, only 80 seconds assured his friend Peres that he would dropped their wing tanks, which was elapsed. Smoke and flames rose into the “excise the Iraqi reactor of its military risky with bombs mounted alongside air as 14 of the 16 bombs hit inside the potential.” After the elections, however, on the wings, to lighten their load and dome and destroyed the reactor. The two President Mitterand sadly concluded that improve their range. bombs that missed were both dropped by he was bound to abide by the previous The initial point for the attack, criti- Spector. The Isis reactor and the Italian agreement with Iraq. cal to the approach, was supposedly an lab were not damaged. Begin, furious, rescheduled the strike unmistakable terrain feature, an island The attack caught the air defense for Sunday, . Peres led Begin in the in the middle of a lake. Recent rains had gunners flat-footed. They were in the public opinion polls. Figuring he would covered the island with water, however, cafeteria for supper, the radars shut lose the election, Begin believed that re- and Raz missed it momentarily, putting down and cold. The defenders got a moval of the Osirak reactor, critical to the his calculations slightly off. few shots off at the last of the F-16s, security of Israel, must be accomplished Fifty miles out, the F-15 escorts before the reluctant Peres took office. broke away and climbed to 25,000 feet After the successful raid, one of the pilots had this mission symbol painted The F-16s and F-15s deployed to to fly patrol and provide air cover. The underneath the cockpit of his F-16. Etzion Air Base on the Sinai Peninsula, strike force had been briefed to expect from where the attack would be launched. challenge from Iraqi air defenses after Security was tight. Telephone lines from they crossed the Euphrates, but there the base, except for a few for official use, was none. The Israelis turned northeast were cut off. Ground crews and techni- toward the target. cians were not told what the mission was. The nuclear complex came into view The eight F-16s were heavily laden ahead on the banks of the Tigris. It was for the attack. Each carried two Mk 84 a quarter-mile square, the white concrete bombs, two AIM-9L Sidewinder missiles, dome of the Osirak facility in the middle, a 300-gallon centerline fuel tank, and two with the Italian lab, the Isis reactor, and 370-gallon wing tanks. They rolled down various shops and buildings off to the side. AIR FORCE Magazine / April 2012 61 ons. Even his Arab neighbors joined the coalition against Iraq when he invaded Kuwait in 1990. During the 1991 , coalition

IAEA, viaTsahi Ben-Ami forces destroyed what was left of the al Tuwaitha complex. After the war, US Defense Secretary Richard Cheney told Ivry the Osirak operation had “made our job much easier in Desert Storm.”

Sequels Years later, Israel carried out a pre- emptive attack against another nuclear site, but this time the world paid much The former site of the Osirak nuclear reactor building was photographed during less attention. In 2007, Israel and the US Desert Storm. The reactor was located next to the narrow smokestack in the far were aware of a nuclear reactor—and center of the photograph. probably a nuclear weapons program— under development in with North but they were shooting wildly and the United States government anticipate Korean assistance. That September, manually, without radar or comput- any change.” Israeli F-15s and F-16s destroyed the ers. Attempting to pick off the diving UN Secretary-General Kurt Wald- facility using Maverick missiles and F-16s, the gunners raked their own heim of Austria denounced the Osirak 500-pound bombs. forces across the way. attack as a “clear contravention of News reports of the attack said the most As the F-16s came off the target, they .” In 1976, he had like- likely targets were “weapons caches” sup- broke left and made a fast departure wise assailed the Israeli raid to rescue porting missile attacks on Israel. Syria, from al Tuwaitha before climbing to its hostages in Entebbe. Waldheim’s not eager to acknowledge it was working altitude to rendezvous with the F-15s. credibility on the subject of Israel took on nuclear weapons, said only that Israel After verifying that they had taken a nose dive when it was later revealed had bombed a building “related to the no losses, Raz led them on a beeline he had been a Nazi party member in military.” More than a month later, US southwest to the Saudi border and then World War II, serving in German units officials said the target was a partially across Jordan to Etzion. They met no that executed partisans and sent Jews constructed nuclear reactor. No other resistance on the way home and landed to death camps. Arab nation criticized the raid, and the at Etzion just after 7 p.m. Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, US delegate to main international complaint came from They had been in the air for three hours the UN, said the “diplomatic means avail- . and 10 minutes. able to Israel had not been exhausted,” Iran’s nuclear program, known to the Contrary to expectation, the foreign and the UN Security Council “strongly public since 2002, has been of greater technicians had taken the Muslim Sab- condemned” Israel’s destruction of the substance and concern. Although the bath on Friday as their day off, but most reactor in a unanimous vote. first target for an Iranian atomic bomb of them had already left work when the William Safire reached a different would be Israel, such a weapon would attack happened on Sunday. One French conclusion in a New York Times column. also be a threat to Europe and the technician was killed. Reports of Iraqi He declared that the Osirak strike “has United States. deaths ranged from zero to 10, and the enabled the rest of the world to indulge The US itself has considered a military low-shooting Iraqi gunners inflicted some in an orgy of hypocrisy.” Elimination of option against Iran’s nuclear weapons of the casualties. the reactor was to the benefit of all, he program, and such a response was still Saddam ordered the execution of the wrote, including the Arab world, which under discussion in recent months. Mean- air defense zone commander and all of- had feared domination by a nuclear- while, diplomatic efforts bogged down ficers in his command over the rank of armed Iraq. in the face of Iran’s defiance. . Twenty-three other officers and Begin’s political fortunes rebounded. In September 2009, the US disclosed pilots were sent to prison. His party won the June election that Iran had carved a nuclear facility and he remained prime minister until out of a mountain near Qom, 100 miles Outrage at the UN October 1983, when Yitzhak Shamir, southwest of Tehran. This January, Iran Iraq and France complained bitterly. who had staunchly supported him in the acknowledged it had begun uranium The and other nations Osirak crisis, succeeded him. enrichment there. chimed in. A New York Times editorial Much of the international anger to- Israeli Defense Minister stated, “Israel’s sneak attack on a French- ward Israel soon faded. F-16 deliveries warned Feb. 2 that if Iran proceeded built nuclear reactor near Baghdad was to Israel resumed Sept. 1, and France with its nuclear program, the window an act of inexcusable and short-sighted declined to sell Iraq a replacement for of opportunity for a military operation aggression.” the destroyed reactor. was closing. In the immediate aftermath, the US In time, the world had reason to be “Whoever says ‘later’ may find that suspended deliveries of F-16s to Israel glad Saddam did not have nuclear weap- later is too late,” he said. n “for the time being.” However, President Reagan soon announced, “There is no John T. Correll was editor in chief of Air Force Magazine for 18 years and is now a fundamental re-evaluation of the United contributor. His most recent article, “The Man From Thud Ridge” appeared in the States’ relationship with Israel, nor does March issue. 62 AIR FORCE Magazine / April 2012

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