A Brief History of: Operation Opera (Osiraq reactor)

[Music] ever since the invention of flight many daring rates have taken place from the Doolittle Raid to Operation Black Buck today however we are looking at the daring and controversial Israeli 1981 raid on an Iraqi nuclear reactor our story starts on the 17th of August 1959 with Iraq's establishment of its nuclear program under an agreement with the USSR by 1968 the USSR would provide a 2 megawatt nuclear reactor called the IRT 5000 and Iraq would sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty ratifying it a year later the treaty legitimized the Iraqi nuclear program but were limited to only being able to develop nuclear energy removing any right to make an atomic weapons program throughout the 1970s Iraq would seek to build upon its fledging nuclear program and would again ask in 1975 helped from the USSR Iraq for out the 1960s and 70s had been seeking a clandestine nuclear and chemical weapons program however this time Moscow would only provide a new reactor if the station would be regulated by the International Atomic Energy Agency Iraq unsurprisingly refused a deal this was because the fledging atomic program would not be used for purely energy reasons and having a nuclear reactor checked out by the IAEA would quickly fort any nuclear weapon ambitions Iraq would search for a new technological provider and they'd find this in France and Italy after approaching Paris and failing to procure a gas called graphite plutonium producing reactor and reprocessing plant another deal was offered for an already established reactor type the French were willing to sell 72 kilograms of uranium and a non agency regulated reactor for 300 million dollars per reactor was an as Irish class research unit after a deal was signed in November 1975 construction began on a new reactor in 1979 the reactor project was announced internationally by the Iraqis and the French but it was solely for the use of peaceful research the procurement agreement of the facility had a clause but excluded military use of these Irish reactor reactor was a 40 megawatt light-water nuclear plant though it could be scaled up to 70 megawatts and it was sited at the outer efort nuclear center near baghdad the French would name it as eirick portamento of his iris and iraq the iraqis namely reactor Tammuz 1d reactor building would be a hundred meters long and 21 meters high the site also held with soviet-built reactor and a smaller French built reactor in July 1980 the first of six twelve point five kilograms shipments of uranium from France arrived and eventually the reactor could be capable of producing material for a nuclear weapons program the Iraqi nuclear program did not go unnoticed with Israel under the exact grab in government and a newly established Islamic Republic of Iran watching as the atomic industrial work intensified as it seemed suspicious about a country of no shortage of oil would be seeking out an alternative to fossil fuel Israel will begin to actively plan to derailed a nuclear program leading up to the late 1970s in 1977 on the 21st of June Moroccan Bagan took over as Israeli prime minister taking a Rock's anti-zionist frets as a serious issue the new government began to make preparations for pre-emptive attack on his iraq before the Iraqi nuclear weapons program could get off the ground whilst plans for sabotage were being made foreign minister Moshe Dayan sought out a diplomatic resolution to stop the reactor with France Italy and with help from the US however diplomatic efforts yielded no discernible result France in an attempt to make the reactor more palatable inserted a clause in the agreement with Iraq but for at least 10 years that the reactor will be overseen by a French technician however this would not subdued a fear of an Iraqi reactor in the region parts of the reactor awaiting transport in lucerne Lemire in 1979 was sabotage and in 1980 yaaaaa elmeshad an egyptian nuclear scientists leading the iraqi program was found dead under suspicious circumstances in his hotel room at La Meridian in Paris also a number of French and Italian contractor companies were bombed and others were threatened the incidents were thought to be linked to Mossad agents these clandestine operations only slowed the reactor down so more substantial plan was needed a planned raid would have to take place 990 miles away from etsion Israel's closest airbase and the potential flight path would violate both Saudi and Jordanian air spaces and once reaching a rocky territory the aircraft would had to fly below radar cover an altitude of just 100 feet to be able to sneak past Jordanian and Saudi defenses the flight would make radio contact only in Arabic and would use only Saudi or Jordanian formations and signals this meant that in-flight refuelling was out of the question for military planners would opt to use heavily fueled and armed aircraft however the operational limitations were not the only hurdle to a surgical strike on the is Iraq's site the decision to pull the trigger on a preemptive strike was a controversial one and because of this the subject was a hot topic of the begin government there was a legitimate fear but a strike could hinder a fragile Egyptian Israel peace talks great anxiety in Arab countries in the area damaged Israel's profile as a regional power breakdown French Israeli relations as well as hinder Israel in the future on the international stage Foreign Minister Diane Defense Minister its allies Minh and Deputy Prime Minister yeh Gordon opposed a strike even yoshiya sagaie a head of military intelligence advised the continuation of non-military efforts to stop the Iraqi nuclear program this was because of the time estimated for the program to create material for an atomic weapon was between five and ten years how they begin and others in his cabinet including future prime minister Ariel Sharon thought the political ramifications would be minimal and spurred on by the worst case scenario of weapons material being available in two years for the airstrike to take place also it's fought with the strike before the reactor became operational would reduce the potential environmental impact and being so close to Baghdad could in theory expose a large population to radiation whilst Israel decided whether to or not to launch an attack the Islamic Republic of Iran beat him to the punch and launched an airstrike of their own on the 31st September 1980 the attack made sense as Iran and Iraq were in the opening days of a war that would last the best part of eight bloody years the attack did not fully destroy the reactor plant and only damage control rooms and cooling systems both of which were relatively easy to repair and quickly bring the reactor back on track to becoming operational with information from a u.s. satellite Mossad agents and the failed Iranian September attack an operational date of June 1981 was predicted by Israel and in October a vote in the Israeli cabinet was held to determine whether a strike would go ahead a vote of 6 to 10 in favour for the strike was cast an operation opera would get the green light even though Iran and Israel were publicly enemies behind the scenes clandestine cooperation was upheld from the pre-revolutionary Iranian government days allegedly the Israeli Air Force received reconnaissance photos from the Iranian Air Force in a follow-up flight over as Iraq in November 1980 the Israeli Air Force had found a black spot in the Iraqi radar cover on the border with Saudi Arabia miss in the armor was known to the Iraqi Armed Forces but had not thought to fix it as there's never an expectation for an attack from Saudi Arabia Operation Opera would use eight new US built f-16s each with to mark 84 2,000 pound or 925 kilogram delay fuse bombs to accompany the attack six f-15s also nourish and us-built were provided for fighter support Juno practice efforts leading up to the strike pirates have been trained on a4 Skyhawks but later changed to the newer aircraft as deliveries of f-16 a.s were diverted from revolutionary and tus to Israel highly skilled pilots were picked for the attack including Israel's first astronaut Eliane Rahman the operation would benefit from the iran-iraq war where the key hates free airfield was struck in April 1981 by the Iranians destroying many Iraqi airplanes greatly diminishing their retaliation or potential the operation started on the seventh of June 1981 but date was picked as being a Sunday there would be a lower likelihood of workers on site including any foreign contractors however on a day this was not the case just before 4:00 p.m. local time 1:00 p.m. GMT the heavily fueled and armed flight took off heading for a rock unknowingly the squadron flew past King Hussein of Jordan whose holidaying on his yacht in the Gulf of Aqaba noticing that the planes were not jordanian hussein tried to raise the alarm but i'm 44 the iraqis the message didn't make it through upon reaching the iraqi border the Fleiss split up with two f-15s staying with the f-16s and the remaining f-15s split off in different directions to try and confuse the iraqi defences the formation heading for the reactor dropped to a hundred feet to try and fly under radar cover by 6:35 p.m. local time 14:35 GMT the attack formation had reached 12 miles from the reactor at this point the aircraft shot up six thousand nine hundred feet to avoid the earthworks built around a reactor site and turned into a 35 degree dive hitting just under 700 miles per hour at 3,600 feet the f16 started releasing their bombs in pairs every five seconds out of a total of 16 bombs eight hit and doumitt of reactor building after just two minutes the attack was over and the aircraft turn and headed back to Israel evading anti-aircraft fire 10 rocky soldiers one French worker and a destroyed reactor lay in the wake of the strike with no Israeli casualties two days after the attack begins set up a press conference taking responsibility for the attack saying pretty dramatically we chose this moment now not later because later maybe too late perhaps forever as if we stood by idly two three years at the most for years and Saddam Hussein would have produced his free four five bombs when this country and this people would have been lost after the Holocaust another Holocaust would have happened in the history of the Jewish people never again never again tell your friends tell anyone you meet we shall defend our people with all means at our disposal we shall not allow any enemy to develop weapons of mass destruction turned against it detecting go unnoticed internationally and Israel was to see a different kind of Fallout that would have been expected if as Iraq was operational new United Nations condemned the attack stating it was a clear violation of the charter of the United Nations and the norms of international conduct even the traditional friends of Israel was shocked at the unprovoked attack on a sovereign state the US newspapers called it state-sponsored terrorism and inexcusable the International atomic agency condemned the attack on the 12th of June stating the agreement between France and Iraq excluded military use and inspections of the reactors at the site had no compliance or safety breaches on a 1915 the UN announced resolution 487 calling for a cease of hostile activities gave Iraq the right to claim for conversation and urged Israel to place its own nuclear facilities under IAEA safeguards the resolution passed with a vote of 15 to 0 unsurprisingly so many Arab states were particularly damning of not only Israel but also the US for supplying the weapons carried out in the attack in response the u.s. froze were delivery of a number of aircraft destined for Israel but blocks any further punishment several months later however the order was unfrozen and the aircraft were eventually delivered a rut unsurprisingly wasn't happy about the attack claiming it was a diversion from Israel's own nuclear program and demanded compensation for damage and loss of life the Iraqi government would still be demanding payment for the next 30 years internally sanim Hussein ordered the execution of colonel he his Sanjib a head of the western elephants for failing to stop the attack a number of other officers would also be executed and several pilots would be imprisoned the reactor was planned to be rebuilt again by the French but issues were payment put the project on hold indefinitely so damn over the following decade built up a rocks army and sought out other weapon types with its chemical and biological programs with Francis on the picture the Iraqi nuclear program stalled and by 1991 and the end of the Gulf War only a few grams of weapons-grade uranium had been produced the one French national killed in the attack 25-year old engineer Damien Chesser feed had restitution paid to his family from the Israeli government the attack also shaped the 1981 Israeli legislative election bolstering waning support from the begin government bizarrely not fully attack itself but for a disgust of the leader of the opposition's criticism of the attack the strike would be used to form the begin doctrine adopted by future Israeli governments for preventive strikes against potential enemies the doctrine would be used in 2007 on attack on a Syrian nuclear site although this time international outcry was minimal the attack on the is Iraq and reactor site in June 1981 will be remembered as a daring and interesting slice of history albeit at the time a controversial one although international outcry was pretty deafening at the time the opinion on the raid would soften especially after the first Gulf War where Iraq had no ability to deploy nuclear weapons although it is unsure whether operation opera disallowed Iraqi nuclear weapons as a program for enough weapons-grade materials would never have fulfilled a quota for any atomic fret I hope you enjoyed the video if you did leave me a thumbs up do you have any suggestions for future videos if you do let me know in the comments I've got a patreon if you fancy supporting the channel financially and all that's left to say is thank you for watching

Channel: Plainly Difficult

Views: 378,374

Keywords: operation opera, nuclear reactor, iraq history, isreali, aviation, history, plainly difficult, zepherus, qxir, education, nuclear history, atomic, learning, history guy

Id: UxuG5GVa43A

Length: 15min 37sec (937 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 21 2019