Air Strike at Osirak Rumors have been circulating for years that Israel was getting ready to n the fall of 1980, Israeli military launch a pre-emptive attack on Iran’s emerging nuclear weapons capability. intelligence reported that the Osirak The speculation intensified as Iran prepared to move its uranium enrichment nuclear reactor, 12 miles southeast plant into a hardened mountain bunker. Iran continued to resist diplomatic of Baghdad, 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 Iof 1981. Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein 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 Israeli Air Force wiped out a nuclear reactor in Iraq 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 relations with the Arab world. In the Iraq’s nuclear reactor was about to go hot. wake of severe gasoline shortages in If the Israelis were going to take action, the United States and Western Europe following the Arab oil embargo of it had to be soon. 1973-1974, France was eager to obtain a secure supply of oil. By John T. Correll When Iraq came shopping for a nuclear reactor, France found the offer of oil at favorable prices too good to pass up. Potential profit from weapons sales was another consideration. In 1975, the French agreed to sell Iraq a 70-megawatt Osiris reactor and a low- grade one-megawatt Isis training reactor. Italy, with similar motivations, agreed to provide a plant to reprocess the nuclear fuel and separate the plutonium. In 1976, work began on a nuclear complex at al Tuwaitha, near a bend in the Tigris River. The French name for the large reactor was “Osirak,” combining “Osiris” and “Iraq.” Saddam and the Iraqi leaders renamed the reactors Tammuz I and II, after Tammuz 17 (July 17), the date of their takeover in 1958 from the previous regime. Outside of Iraq, both the large reactor and the nuclear complex Copyright Bettman/Corbis/AP Images continued to be known as Osirak. In 1978, France agreed to Iraq’s demands for highly enriched uranium, suitable for military purposes, to fuel the reactors, refusing an Israeli appeal to substitute lower grade “caramel” fuel. Saddam Hussein in the summer of 1981. In April 1979, two reactor cores were destroyed by sabotage in France, just before they were to be shipped to Iraq. This set the project back by six months; many blamed the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad. The small Isis/Tammuz II reactor was activated in February 1980. In June Below: The first Israelis trained on American F-16s were (l-r) Maj. Dubi Yaffe, Lt. Col. Zeev Raz, Capt. Haggai Katz, and Capt. Yisrael Shaphir. All told, 12 Israeli pilots trained at Hill AFB, Utah. Left: The route taken into Iraq by the F-16 strike force that took out the Osirak nuclear site. Raz flew as the Map by Tsahi Ben-Ami mission leader. style atomic bomb. The target for his bomb would be Israel. If Israel was going to act, it had to be soon. Once the reactor was in operation and “hot”—fueled with uranium—a Photo viaTsahi Ben-Ami bombing attack would spread radioac- tive fallout across Baghdad. Saddam’s Reactor Saddam had gotten his reactor from France, which had also been the source of Israel’s nuclear technology in the 1950s. Since then, the French had made a policy switch and sought to improve AIR FORCE Magazine / April 2012 59 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 Operation Opera 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. Ariel Sharon, 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. Rafael Eitan, 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. David Ivry, commander flying air cover for them. become after the invasion of Kuwait 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 United States, 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 September 1980. 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 Tel Aviv 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 Yom Kippur War. (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 Saudi Arabia and The marginally competent Iranian Air Jordan 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 Menachem Begin, 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, Ezer Weizman, available by chance. Israel had F-16s were hand-picked by Eitan and Ivry. The and Labor Party leader Shimon Peres—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.