The bombing of the Iraqi nuclear reactor thirty years ago last week altered the balance of terror in the Middle East for years to come. After three decades, with all the secrets out, what actually happened during those fateful, miraculous three hours between takeoff and touchdown – and in the previous days and weeks that led up to the controversial plan? And with the present Iranian nuclear threat on the horizon, does June 7, 1981 look any different today?
“The alternative is our destruction ” then-IDF Chief of Staff Raful Eitan briefed the pilots as they were about to set off on a mission that would change the face of pre-emptive warfare – if they would come back alive. Thirty years ago last week Israeli F-16s flew under Iraqi radar and in less than a minute and a half bombed the Osirak nuclear facility near Baghdad. Just three hours after takeoff from Etzion air force base in the south all the pilots were safely home.
“I believe that the most difficult part of the operation was obtaining approval for it” recalls Aviam Sela who was then director of the IDF Department of Operations. Three decades later with all the secrets out what actually happened during those fateful miraculous hours – and in the previous days and weeks that led up to the controversial plan?
Conference in the Corridor
The decision to launch Operation Opera was made only once there was no doubt about Iraq’s intent to create nuclear weapons. But time was of essence. Israeli intelligence reported that by September 1981 the reactor would go “hot” and damaging it would endanger the surrounding population. Elections for the tenth Knesset were scheduled to take place at the end of June and the polls indicated the possibility of a complete turnaround that would restore the Alignment (today’s Labor party) to power. Prime Minister Menachem Begin was convinced that his rival Shimon Peres would not carry out his government’s decision to destroy the Iraqi reactor and indeed Peres made two attempts to prevent the bombing of the reactor — a month before in May 1981 and on the very day of the bombing itself.
Bombing the reactor was the result of the longest decision-making process the Israeli government had ever experienced. Begin inherited the dilemma from his predecessor Yitzchak Rabin when he became prime minister in 1977. The protocols and documents from that era are still extant and they attest to an unavoidable last-ditch effort through diplomatic channels and through the Mossad to control Iraq’s nuclear program which was clearly focused on much more than peaceful scientific research. Saddam Hussein had already announced that nuclear weapons would insure Israel’s destruction stating “The struggle against Israel will be long and difficult and during its course it is possible that Israel may even try to utilize atomic bombs against the Arabs. Therefore the Arabs must prepare the necessary weapons to be victorious.”
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