Francis P. Sempa
Before Netanyahu
It was codenamed Operation Opera — Israel’s daring and successful air attack on Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor at Tuwaitha. On June 7, 1981, fourteen Israeli fighter jets (F-16s and F-15As) plus other aircraft flew from Etzion airport more than 600 miles over hostile countries into Iraqi airspace.
To avoid radar detection, the fighters flew low, and when they reached the reactor each fighter jet released its bombs. The attack partially destroyed the reactor and killed ten Iraqi soldiers and a French engineer. (Iraq had purchased the reactor from France on the condition that it be used for “peaceful” purposes).
Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin had been warned by Israeli intelligence that the reactor would become operational sometime between July and November of 1981, and that after that Saddam Hussein would be able to extract plutonium from spent atomic fuel to manufacture an atomic bomb. As John Correll wrote in Air Force Magazine, “If Israel was going to act, it had to be soon. Once the reactor was in operation and … fueled with uranium …. a bombing attack would spread radioactive fallout across Baghdad,” which was only 12 miles away.
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