Raid on the Iraqi Reactor !

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June 1981 eight fighter jets are spotted in the skies over Baghdad preparing to attack their target the pride and joy of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein it was one of the most important military surprises of all times as the Jets dive at their target stunned Iraqis stare in disbelief the insignia on the wings is the Star of David the symbol of the Israeli Air Force how could Israel strike from such a great distance without detection something has not been done before for more than two decades the Israelis have kept the details of this unprecedented mission a closely guarded state secret we were not able to penetrate Israeli intelligence to gain any heads up about a potentially aggressive action against the reactor but now Israel has released these classified documents and for the first time the missions officers architects and pilots can finally tell their story there was a lot of firing from the ground a lot of fun you see every bullet and each one of them bears for you it was an attack that shocked the world I could hear the president he said they did what this is a story of international espionage blackmail and targeted assassinations a story of one of the most daring and dangerous military operations ever attempted the story of Israel's raid on the reactor it is early in June 1981 despite relative peace between Israel and the Arab world Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Bagan gives the green light for a top-secret military operation to proceed moments later 8 f16 jets taxi down the runway of a secret Israeli airbase in the Sinai desert carrying a weight that exceeds nearly twice the design specs of the aircraft with the additional weight the Jets struggled to get airborne but do so with precious little runway left finally after years of secrecy planning and espionage a mission that could determine the very fate of Israel is underway I felt that it is the future of the State of Israel on my shoulders yes many of us were worse or grandsons or sons of people who had been through the Holocaust and we had been a part of a mission that was to prevent another Holocaust the planning of the mission dubbed Operation Opera had been underway for over three years but right from the start Prime Minister Bagan and his staff were hoping even praying the raid would never have to take place they decided to put the kind of a red line if we can call it a red line saying that we'll continue to try all kind of diplomatic efforts means using the military force only as a last resort what was this threat to the Jewish state that had the Israeli government so concerned what enemy had the capability to strike this kind of fear in the hearts of a recognized military power the answer laid nearly 600 miles to the east in Baghdad Iraq home of Saddam Hussein an article appeared in one of the major Baghdad newspapers saying that they would have a nuclear bomb to neutralize Israel in his 1987 bestseller first strike Israeli author Shlomo anak Damone describes a nightmarish scenario that in 1981 was all too real the spoink's vamos Sheva in the skies over Tel Aviv an unidentified Boeing 707 is spotted approaching from the sea all of a sudden a huge dark object falls from underneath the airplanes wing which Saddam actually have used the nuclear bomb against Israel knowing that I'm usin I think you haven't the answer it's very obvious that this was a man who cared very little about you might and the values of to dominate Western democratic societies and then included Israel and they were dedicated to the destruction of Israel he published a statement to the Iranian people telling them that this nuclear capability is not going to be used against them this is we're talking about in the time of war with Iran but against the Zionist entity with three bombs there could be at least half a million maybe 600,000 Israeli casualties and the destruction of their major cities whatever Saddam's intentions were he knew Iraq did not possess the resources necessary to develop a nuclear weapon what his country did have in abundance was oil and billions in cash to spend so armed with these two irresistible commodities Saddam went shopping for a reactor and quickly found a supplier French Prime Minister Jacques Chirac and the French government Chirac and Saddam Hussein had become quite close and had struck a contract whereby France would build this nuclear reactor France charged him 200 million dollars he bought Mirage jets and 7000 run O's I was interested in the story because it was too good to be true too nicely to clean to everything what was too perfect Jean Pierre van Garrett is a renowned French investigative reporter famous for uncovering government secrets and scandals for over 40 years it was van Garrett who first broke the story about the questionable dealings between France and the notorious dictator during his investigation he also uncovered possible evidence that Saddam had induced and enticed French officials to cooperate the French official got back from Iraq oil contact in the Middle East and they got money when the agreement was announced in 1975 the French government defended their actions the facility would be purely a civilian reactor used for energy purposes only while many accepted this explanation there were those who doubted the rationale here was a nation that didn't need energy resources didn't need nuclear energy run by a nefarious thug a killer and what could one properly assume publicly he claimed that this is for energy for capability of scientific peaceful goals privately we know from scientists who work their goals were based on the assumption that two to three bombs will demolish the State of Israel and those were the numbers that they were working on they really knew the real meaning of that construction would have been a military purpose within weeks of the announced agreement construction on the reactor began just outside of Baghdad Saddam named the soon to be built reactor after the babylonian month of Tammuz the very same month in which nebuchadnezzar began his assault on the jewish people in 586 BC but these developments failed to raise concerns by any nation other than Israel who regarded the situation with pessimistic trepidation obviously satellite photography was providing data on the construction of a reactor I recall having seen it or mention of it during the transition from the Carter Administration to the Reagan administration but I don't recall that we paid any particular attention to the progress of that reactor nor were we particularly alarmed by it there was no attention given to it having verified the capabilities of the reactor through several international independent sources prime minister bagan found himself with only one option set into motion a plan either through diplomacy espionage or military action to stop the reactor from going hot he then tasked the head of the IAF to search out several possibilities of how they could go about neutralizing this and that's what began this whole mission as the eight Israeli f-16 fighter jets clear the runway they streak towards their target within minutes they are within Jordanian airspace as planned the pilots then descend to an unthinkable altitude of only 100 feet above the ground we didn't wander though the enemy rather to see us not in Saudi Arabia are not in Jordan and not in Iraq of course then is the approach the Gulf of Aqaba disaster strikes and they flew right over this beautiful yacht King Hussein of Jordan his yacht and he looked up and saw eat Israeli fighters heading east right above his yacht with OSHA force was shaking and he figure out immediately what is all about is sorry he called his officer on the ship to call once entering in among tell the brothers that the Israelis are coming to no cover where the pilots unaware of the potential danger below proceed on course they initiate radio silence and will continue this way until they are ready to attack their target the necessity for such a dangerous mission came only after all other attempts to halt the construction of the reactor failed they concluded on our assessment that we are going to help to add leaving him with very few alternatives bagan reluctantly instructed his military commanders to begin planning operation opera at the same time bagan instructed the Mossad Israel's famed Secret Service Agency to proceed with their own particular methods of delaying the construction it decide to give lessons to prove that they can do things and they did the Mossad had found that the French were about ready to ship the core of nuclear reactor to Iraq and it was me stored at a warehouse and a French town on the Mediterranean the boot to charge of explosive to quote-unquote destroy the place it did not destroy it enough though and it could be patched up and Iraq decided to patch it up but it took another six months so they delayed it for another six months the Mossad was also able to infiltrate the French Atomic Energy Commission and identified a top Egyptian nuclear scientist working for Saddam in Paris in a scenario right out of a spy novel the agents offered him sex money and power in exchange for information on the reactor he was not interested in in doing any business with them so the Mossad decided to just take him out then on Saturday June fourteenth nineteen eighty dollar I L measured checked into the upscale Meridian hotel in Paris Mossad bad guys uh Santa Anna Scott go to the room of that poor guy when he opened the door they slit his throat didn't steal anything now a prostitute had been in the hallway she fled but she contacted the police and before she was able to be interviewed a black Mercedes ran her over and then disappeared so she was killed before she was able to say anything over the course of the development of the reactor various news agencies reported that nearly a dozen nuclear scientists working on the project lost their lives many of the deaths were blamed on the Mossad there were some successes all the way I cannot refer to details what has been done despite the espionage the murders the sabotage it was clear to the Israelis that nothing was going to stop Saddam from completing the construction of the reactor yeah they got there was a moment that the Mossad notified the prime minister that they had exhausted all of their resources and at the moment this notice was received it was clear it was a green light for the attack after escaping Jordanian airspace apparently undetected the eight f-16s enter Saudi Arabia airspace here avoiding detection will be even more difficult the Saudis have recently taken delivery on a fleet of AWACS spy planes from the US that patrols Saudi Arabia continuously searching for enemy encroachments to further complicate matters the landscape has changed drastically flying just 100 feet above the ground now becomes a challenging task even for the most seasoned of the Israeli pilots as they must negotiate the peaks and valleys that dot the topography it is over Saudi Arabia that the squadron must execute the first of several never before tried dangerous maneuvers what we did actually we drop the fuel tanks in the desert after I've been using all the fuel of course this is something that is not allowed to do in f16 I think even today because the wing tanks are very close to the bombs and when you carry bombs on the wings we cannot you're not allowed jettison the wing does until you get rid of the bombs there was some concern whether the wing tanks would smash into the bomb or flip over the wing and damage the flaps but indeed they dropped them and these 16 wing paint are still there in the desert someplace even today dropping the wing tanks was the only maneuver the pilots had not practiced in their intensive training that had begun some ten months earlier it had the mission proceeded as originally planned none of the eight pilots would have been over Saudi Arabia now much less worrying about external fuel tanks it didn't have f-16 f-16 arrived only July 1980 Brees initial plan called for an armed incursion into Iraq but a similar mission by the United States military to rescue the hostages in Iran was a complete failure and one which forced the Israelis to rethink their plan before an alternative plan could be conceived a seemingly unrelated event in the Middle East took place that set in motion a chain of fortuitous events for Israel in 1979 fundamentalist Iranians overthrew the Shah of Iran prior to the coup the Shah had ordered 76 new top-of-the-line f-16 fighter jets that now could not be delivered to the new hostile government the State Department offered him to Israel and of course they immediately said yeah that then changed Eve Rees thinking completely the f-16s would require a new squadron made up of Israel's top guns ultimately this elite group would be the ones to pilot the mission though at the time they were unaware of this distinction the generator called me and glutton Colorado when they told us that they picked us as the first commanders because we had the expensing in air-to-ground missions and he would like us to concentrate on our mission on the way back to our base from his office we are wondering what is a what was that all about regardless of the directives all the pilots were exhilarated to be chosen to initiate Israel's state-of-the-art fighter it's cozy it's built like a glove it's built for the pilot it was built by pilots much easier to fly there an f-16 a lot of thought for the pilots ability to do a lot of things at the same time new ver the airplane while operating the radar systems the weapon systems so it's a fighter pilots fighter it was only after the pilots had returned from their formal training in Utah that general Avery revealed the details of the mission to the group their reaction was as he expected I was shocked because I didn't know that Iraq had a nuclear program a let alone thought about getting to Baghdad which was quite a distance away we didn't cross our mind that was anything like this was it was a big map on the wall with the smoke pin southeast of Baghdad and we were told that there is a nuclear raptor there we thought that they are planning a mission to strike once the mission was revealed the real training began we had trained at flying at a very low altitude for a long time in a close formation and the f16 had special problems that had to be dealt with yep another single single engine so we thought maybe a single engine we used to fly into engine in the twin-engine and this is single engine now then what happened with the engine quit on us but there's another engineer the seat the ejection seat the root itself would take the pilots first over the southern tip of Jordan then across northern Saudi Arabia both sworn enemies of Israel at the time after crossing the Saudi border into Iraq the pilots would set a course straight for Baghdad because the mission would be over 1,200 miles in distance the pilots had to figure out a way to train simulating that distance while remaining in Israeli airspace Israel still had out of Sinai and we could fly through Sinai down to Sharm el-sheikh and then he went down into the Red Sea and come back with to fly several times back and forth to simulate the range the youngest of the f-16 pilots was a 26-year old captain named Ilan Ramon who will always be remembered as Israel's first astronaut and was one of seven who perished in the space shuttle Columbia tragedy in 2003 back in 1980 Ramon was eager to join the elite group of pilots and contribute his specialized skills to the mission the first person I shared these secret week was kept in Iran armed on with his childish smile told me that slightly out of range well you can fly that but you cannot land back in Israel if you want to learn in Jordan then it's possible Ilan Ramon was correct since mid-air refueling was not an option the f-16s had to be modified and scaled down this meant adding two additional fuel tanks one under each wing and eliminating everything but essential equipment which in effect would make the aircraft defenseless we didn't take with us any jamming pods which are for sub defense against the pony commercials I mean Raiders and so on but from their perspective they were like flying ducks and some they did a mission and coming back home like flying ducks and had to do without any capability to defend himself as the target date fast approached the Mossad kept an eye on the progress of the reactor utilizing top-secret US spy satellites the satellite access allowed Israel to monitor every detail of the construction it drew from just this one dome shaped reactor that the French sold them to kind of a nuclear as many many many buildings administration buildings of the chemical conversion factory where they could transform the spent nuclear fuel into plutonium just everything the photos revealed the facility had been impressively fortified with new batteries of anti-aircraft artillery and strategic surface-to-air missiles known as Sam's clearly the situation in Baghdad had progressed faster than anyone could imagine then on June 1st the French newspaper la pawn reported that the construction of the reactor was complete it would now only be a matter of months before the facility was fully operational five days later Prime Minister bagans summoned general Ivry to his residence the operation he announced will take place the day after tomorrow Sunday June 7th Sunday June 7th 1981 was another typical summer day throughout Israel from the holy city of Jerusalem to the modern metropolis of Tel Aviv there was nothing to indicate this was going to be anything but just another Sunday however at eat Zion the secret Israeli airbase in the Sinai June 7th was anything but typical all of the pilots had reported to the base the day before and now they were busy thoroughly inspecting each of the f-16s when I did the round or checking the airplane before that I all of a sudden felt myself touching the airplane and caressing it you kind of want the airplane to have a personality in the sense that you may break the next flight or the flight before you may something may go wrong but don't go wrong on me this time the final briefing came later that morning general avery addressed the squadron with rhetoric that left no doubt in the minds of the pilots about the enormity of the undertaking he says okay you guys if you succeed you will save Israel before telling I told him listen there is one simple fact they cannot stop her from getting there I don't know if you can come back they cannot stop us after the briefing the pilots had several hours to be alone with her thoughts and the contemplate would lay ahead Emir knock who me who would lead the second of two formations was overwhelmed there when I when I first felt the gravity of this mission how heavy it is for us I distinctly remembered that I felt that Ilan Ramon who was my wingman and myself were going to be killed and couldn't share the information with my wife or anybody else and I remember that I came to peace with myself on the day of the mission because I'm named after my grandfather who had died in a concentration camp and I felt that I'm flying for him and there was this some calm in it that you know that there is a meaning to whatever happens to you at exactly 1601 the pilots fired up their engines and taxi to the runway in an attempt to carry as much fuel as possible the Jets underwent a very dangerous and precarious maneuver called hot refueling just prior to takeoff something has not been done before we brought the air the tankers to the runway we just who connecting them to the end while we was waiting for their for the for the time to take off we was topping up the airplane I personally had a problem with fuel transfer my airplane was not refueling if you were not able to refuel basically weren't able to come back moments later the squadrons technical officer gave the pilots the thumbs-up signal one of the major concerns for Zev roz who was the lead pilot was you know getting off the ground and indeed when they finally started taxing down the runway he wasn't gaining enough speed as he was passing by these different markers where normally he'd be up and and heading off into the blue he was still on the tarmac who's afraid he was gonna run out of runway despite the burden of the heavy load all eight of the f-16s lifted off and headed east the mission was underway locator Bolam now some 90 minutes later the pilots were nearing a rocky airspace I think as fighter pilots and getting used to being steered which is part of the job you occupy itself with the technicalities of flying the garage so some question I love MJ about ours a look up though so you're making sure you're not flying to the ground you can't talk to your buddies because there's a radio silence electronic silence but you have time to think and maybe even enjoy the scenery a little bit to take your mind off what's going to happen this was a terrains that we never flew about this was a terrain well defended at 1735 the pilots passed the Euphrates River in western Iraq the designated landmark to begin the bombing runs each pilot now accelerated their air speed to 540 knots and now flying at 50 feet becomes very difficult so you really have to concentrate on your flying and all you see is your buddy in front of you and we were four pairs about three seconds apart miles away in Baghdad like in Israel it was a very typical Sunday afternoon most people were enjoying the day off from work including all the French technicians working at the reactor and this was a detail that had not been overlooked by the Israelis they decided according to our assessment that much less employees are going to be on at least French employees on Sunday so we decided to make to launch the attack on something let's say sister Corina services the time the raid took place was also factored into the attack strategy the timing was a very good timing where change of guard takes place between Dane day shift and night shift relic Shaffir was right moments before the attack began the Iraqi technicians who were manning the anti-aircraft artillery guns and the surface-to-air missiles had taken their dinner break and now then Grennan starts to flow you make sure all your switches are on everything is all set check and recheck look at the wingman turning out to care where the other guys are look forward and wait for the fire to begin grillak and the other pilots would have to wait for the anti-aircraft firing to begin because for some inexplicable reason the guards at the reactor site had turned off the radar that could have intercepted the attacking f-16s when we turned on the widows and we saw that there were no fighters over Baghdad really surprised we were surprised and in a way we were even disappointed we expected them to be over but done because the war was going on because we knew that they could see us at least 15 minutes before all the attention was towards East and they didn't expect somebody coming from the West the Jets accelerated to 600 knots and pulled up to an altitude of more than 4,000 feet with the target in sight they were now ready to begin their dive but as the Jets screened towards the target Zev Ross discovered he had misjudged the dive point and would not be able to hit the reactor dome so God leaned his wingman cut in underneath Ross and became the number one bomber instead of ropes in the meantime Ross did loop the loop with his plane and came in behind Yardley yodelling and Roz dropped both of their bombs perfectly on target after the bombing no to know altitude look for each other in order to cover each other and see if any mix any enemy planes any surface-to-air missiles fired at us so nothing so then after something like I think two minutes of line Claude did you and I speed we climbed to 40,000 feet by the time relic Shaffir and Ilan Ramon made their run the Iraqi guards had scrambled back to their posts and had to open fire so you see every bullet and each one of them and you can have a feeling that it's for you and now you're just locked into the target where you're going to put your paper and your gunsight and all you care about is getting the airplane to the right spots to make sure that you have a good shot and then the release point two tons get released from the airplane it's a lot lighter and you even feel like you got hit and then there's a release of tension even though you're right above the target you've accomplished the mission even if you get shot now let the bombs go into the target we were used to having right because it was the iran-iraq war at the time so every now and again we'd have an air-raid warning and planes would come over but this was very different there was just the explosion no warning or anything and then suddenly all the anti-aircraft fire went out of the 16 bombs that were dropped each one had hit the target despite the failure of two of the bombs to detonate the dome now lay in ruins were relatively destroyed I was wondering if this is how it looks what it destroyed because I don't see I didn't see the dome anywhere was a lot of smoke and it looks to me like a big hole in the ground combination of the large bombs accuracy of the weapon system and the skill of the pilots that was good enough first thing I thought okay we did it and lay all the fields because what is the most fear of a pilot is not to get killed is to blow the mission anybody who's into combat knows it's getting the mission done first everything comes in second especially if you're in combat a combat pilot with a target destroyed the pilots now focus their attention on their next task getting back alive and avoiding what they thought would be a certain encounter with a rocky aircraft but the Iraqis didn't play I didn't take off they didn't shoot missiles didn't fire missiles they even didn't lock the rebels yes it was a big surprise for us that according to my knowledge not even one semi missile was launched towards us even after the bombing on the way back 40,000 feet for more than more than 90 minutes they didn't try to intercept us okay and then we start you know chatting over the radio and every was for the first time I think in the history it just came over the frequency and said guys it's not it's not done yet you have to lend a shut up come on bear donor cannot service for the Commission I'll gornicke return electronically unabated by enemy or rocky aircraft the eight f-16 set their course for eight zion airbase and what pilots hoped would be an uneventful flight back now it was just a matter of having sufficient fuel for the 600-mile trip all of us came came back but with with a not the last drop but very very very close to that minutes after the attack bagan received a call from general avery the bombing was a complete success 90 minutes later he received more good news all the pilots had returned alive everything had gone as planned the only miscalculation was relic safir's prediction that he and Ilan Ramon would not make it back alive when I got out Ilan was in the next shelter and we just hugged for about a minute you know didn't say a word just hugged each other for about a minute if you touch someone you know you are okay you're alive it was a great moment that I cherished I still cherish the Iraqis were not the only one surprised by the raid it seemed the entire world was caught off guard I've really think it was one of the most important and most interesting military surprises of all time I think the magnificence of the of the operation was reflected in the fact that had been under consideration for more than a year and that they're not leaked and that we were not able to penetrate Israeli intelligence to gain any heads up about potentially aggressive or you call it aggressive action against the reactor President Ronald Reagan was relationship with Monacan Bagan was both confidential and contentious was shocked when he was notified I said mr. president these realities you've just taken out a reactor in Iraq using f-16s he said they did what and I said well repeated myself and he said you know what dick and I said what's that mr. president he said boys will be boys the following day the National Security Council convened in the Oval Office to formulate the official US response to the raid the president went around the table and with the exception of one member of the cabinet there was a very strong anti Israeli condemnation mood in the room it was really rather vitriolic especially the vice president and Jim Baker I was frankly amazed at the views that were expressed the Vice President George Bush Room longtime friend was very vehement his criticism of the Israelis strongly urging that some sort of punitive action be taken Jim Baker the sikh chief of staff of the White House was of the very same opinion then we finally got around to me and I said to the president before this is over we'll be on our knees thanking God Israel did what it did as Israel had expected the UN voted unanimously to condemn Israel for the attack but despite demands from Vice President Bush and Arab nations for harsh sanctions against Israel none was ever enacted visual has nothing to apologize for we decided to act now before it is too late we shall defend our people with all the means at our disposal that's the the the rule number one of Israel to protect and defend his territory so they did what they had to do according to van Gert many in the French government including Jacques Chirac himself were privately relieved that Israel had taken this action despite his public hyperbole to the contrary nobody really regret that bomb being the fact that this factory was destroyed was not a bad deal for him after all he played his part said I'm paid for the factory she racked fulfill his contract and boom politics aside military experts from around the world were astounded by the boldness of the mission and the expertise in which it was executed got a lot of compliments by mainly military people mainly defense people compliments us about it but it was on unfallen under the table there all blisters they're all really praised up there they really didn't believe that we could do it military observers were also astonished by the absolute precision of the attack only the main target the reactor was destroyed adjacent buildings were left completely intact there were only 11 casualties Tana rocky soldiers in one French technician and most of the casualties came as a result of the artillery fired blindly into the sky by Iraqi soldiers as they waited for their radar to warm up most importantly the nuclear fuel stored nearby was undamaged precluding any potential nuclear radioactive contamination well it was superbly done and they the man who did it were superb professionals I thought it was absolutely stupendous it was hard for me to imagine that this could have been done so expertly had it been a long time in planning it was performed brilliantly nearly flawlessly the condemnation of Israel was vociferous but short-lived but the Israelis accepted the criticism in exchange for what they saw as security from certain catastrophe Israel put an end to his nuclear ambitions they had restored the balance of power in the Middle East and neutralized a potential very violent dictator it would be nearly a decade before the rest of the world understood the significance of the mission in 1991 Saddam invaded neighboring Kuwait which ultimately led to US intervention and Desert Storm obviously that history would have changed because Saddam was saying being under pressure with a possible nuclear weapon would have acted differently with a lot more boldness and I'm not sure that the United States would have acted the way it did knowing that he has that kind of capability after the victory in Desert Storm David Avery then the Israeli ambassador to the United States found out just how much the US military echoed those sentiments Dick Cheney wrote a letter to David Eve Wray and it was a photograph from the satellite of the destroyed reactor site and below Cheney had written if a one for you Desert Storm wouldn't have been a success we had felt at the time that we had the burden of keeping up the security of the Jewish people not just the Israeli nation and that was a genuine feeling that I think ran through our minds from day one flight school so it wasn't just a mission it was destiny to destroy a strategic point or asset of the enemy to come back safely to do it without collateral damage this is a wonderful example of what you can achieve with airpower you

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Channel: Joseph Wouk

Views: 1,955,924

Rating: 4.4457612 out of 5

Keywords: israel, iraq, reactor, operation, iaf, idf, airforce, hussein, saddam, iran

Id: PeHc4vbQrNY

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Length: 44min 42sec (2682 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 04 2014

Reddit Comments

Ah yes.. the good old days...

👍︎︎ 3 👤︎︎ u/Jou_ma_se_Poes 📅︎︎ Jul 31 2019 🗫︎ replies