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Middle East History—It Happened in June
Israel Bombs Iraq's Osirak Nuclear Research Facility
By Donald Neff
June 1995, Pages 81-82
It was 14 years ago, on June 7, 1981, that 16 U.S.-made Israeli
warplanes bombed and destroyed Iraq's Osirak nuclear research
facility near Baghdad, more than 600 miles from Israel's borders.1
Prime Minister Menachem Begin claimed the reactor was about to go
into operation and was a threat to Israel because it could produce
nuclear weapons. Begin's claims were contradicted by a number of
experts, but there was considerable circumstantial evidence that Iraq
indeed hoped eventually to develop a nuclear weapon. 2 However,
Israel's critics pointed out that Iraq was a signatory to the nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty, which allowed international inspections of
the nuclear facility, while Israel itself refused to sign the treaty,
refused inspections of its nuclear facility, and was widely believed
to have a large nuclear arsenal. 3
The Attack's Deeper Meaning
Thus the deeper meaning of the attack was that it amounted to a declaration of war
against the Arab world's efforts to enter the atomic age. The attack was Israel's way
of declaring that only the Jewish state would be all
owed to participate in advanced technology, while the Arabs would be consigned to
non-nuclear technology and second-class economies.
Israel was universally condemned. The White House advised Congress that a
"substantial" violation of the Arms Export Control Act prohibition against the use of
U.S. weapons except in self-defense "may have occurred" in Is
rael's bombing of Iraq's nuclear facility.4 It was the third time the act had been
invoked against Israel, the first two occurring during the Carter administration
because of Israeli attacks on Lebanon.5 But, as in the pr
ior cases, Congress declined to take any action.6
Moreover, President Ronald Reagan soon found extenuating circumstances for Israel's
conduct. Reagan said: "Israel might have sincerely believed it was a defensive move,"
adding: "It is difficult for me to envision Israel
as being a threat to its neighbors."7 While Washington joined in a unanimous U.N.
Security Council resolution "strongly" condemning Israel, privately U.S. officials
made it known that the United States would veto any arti
cle that called for sanctions against Israel. As a result of this pressure, council
Resolution 487 stopped short of imposing sanctions and Israel's aggression was let go
with a slap on the wrist. 8
Bobby Inman, the No. 2 man at the Central Intelligence Agency, was less forgiving. He
realized that the Israeli warplanes could not have flown to their target without
having been guided by aerial photographs supplied by U
.S. spy satellites. Under a secret arrangement worked out with Israeli intelligence by
Director of Central Intelligence William J. Casey, Israel had been granted access to
U.S. satellite photography.9 However, Inman knew
that access was to be limited to areas posing potential "direct threats" to Israel, in
Inman's words. When he discovered Israel had drawn material on such far-away areas as
Iraq, Libya and Pakistan, he made a decision to
limit its access to photographs covering areas no farther than 250 miles from Israel's
border, thereby reducing Israel's satellite intelligence to its immediate neighbors. 10
Only the Jewish state would be allowed to participate in advanced technology.
This decision infuriated Israel's supporters, and nearly 13 years later came back to
haunt Inman when he was nominated by President Bill Clinton as secretary of defense.
Israel's supporters, in particular columnist Willia
m Safire of the New York Times, took advantage of the occasion to launch harsh
personal attacks against Inman, convincing him he could not effectively run the
Pentagon amid such powerful criticism. Inman declined the nomi
nation.11
Actually, Israel's aggressive intentions toward Iraq should have come as no surprise
to anyone, particularly the CIA. Since at least 1979 it had been waging a secret war
aimed at disrupting Iraq's nuclear program. The cam
paign was carried out by Israel's Mossad intelligence agency under the name Operation
Sphinx.12 The operation began at least as early as April 6, 1979, when three bomb
explosions in the nuclear facility of the French firm
of Constructions Navales et Industrielles de la Méditerranée in La Seyne-Sur-Mer near
Marseilles blew up reactor cores about to be shipped to Iraq's facility, setting back
Iraq's program by at least half a year. 13
On June 13, 1980, Dr. Yahya Meshad, an Egyptian nuclear physicist working for Iraq's
Atomic Energy Commission, was killed in his Paris hotel room. Meshad had been in
France checking on highly enriched uranium that was abo
ut to be shipped as the first fuel for Iraq's reactor and, according to Mossad
defector Victor Ostrovsky, was the victim of Mossad agents.14 Two months later,
starting Aug. 2, a series of bombs exploded at the offices or
residences of officials of Iraq's key suppliers in Italy and France: SNIA-Techint,
Ansaldo Mercanico Nucleare and Techniatome. The three firms were supplying Iraq with a
reactor and hot cells and their officials and worke
rs were harassed by threatening letters. 15
An Earlier Terror Campaign
The terror campaign against Iraq was similar to one carried out by Israel 19 years
earlier against West German scientists working on Egypt's rocket program. That
campaign was called Operation Damocles and involved kidnapp
ing and letterbombs which caused the deaths of at least five persons in 1962-63.16 By
the time Israel halted its campaign against the German scientists, it had already
become clear that, in the words of Prime Minister Dav
id Ben-Gurion's biographer, they "were a group of mediocre scientists who had
developed antiquated missiles. The panic that had overtaken the country's
leadership...was highly exaggerated." 17 But the damage was done. Not
only did the victims suffer directly, but the operation convinced Egypt's leadership
of Israel's unyielding hostility.
While Israel's suspicions against Iraq may have been more realistic, its disregard of
the significant diplomatic effects of its violent action was similarly myopic.
Although Israel repeatedly congratulated itself during t
he 1991 war against Iraq that its attack represented an early blow to Saddam's
militancy, there can be little doubt that one result of the attack was to further
radicalize the Iraqi leader and add to his suspicions of the
West and his determination to build up Iraq's war machine.18
There can be no certainty, of course, that diplomacy would have stemmed Saddam's
ambitions. But there can be no doubt that once Israel attacked Iraq with U.S.-made
warplanes, Saddam would do whatever he could to harm Amer
ica and its Persian Gulf friends like Kuwait. The culmination of Saddam's hatred came
a decade later when a half-million American military personnel had to be rushed to the
Gulf area to war against Iraq's invasion of Kuwa
it.
RECOMMENDED READING:
Bar-Zohar, Michael, Ben-Gurion: A Biography, New York, Delacorte Press, 1978.
Ben-Gurion, David, Israel: A Personal History, New York, Funk & Wagnalls, Inc., 1971.
*Green, Stephen, Living by the Sword: America and Israel in the Middle East, 1968-87,
Brattleboro, VT, Amana Books, 1988.
*Hersh, Seymour M., The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign
Policy , New York, Random House, 1991.
Nakhleh, Issa, Encyclopedia of the Palestine Problem, New York, Intercontinental
Books, 1991.
*Neff, Donald, Warriors for Jerusalem: The Six Days That Changed the Middle East, New
York, Linden Press/Simon & Schuster, 1984, and Brattleboro, VT: Amana Books, 1988.
Ostrovsky, Victor and Claire Hoy, By Way of Deception, New York, St. Martin's Press,
1990.
*Raviv, Dan and Yossi Melman, Every Spy a Prince: The Complete History of Israel's
Intelligence Community, Boston, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1990.
Spector, Leonard S., Nuclear Proliferation Today, New York, Vintage Books, 1984.
Steven, Stewart, The Spymasters of Israel, New York, Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc.,
1980.
Tillman, Seth, The United States in the Middle East: Interests and Obstacles,
Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1982.
Weissman, Steve and Herbert Krosney, The Islamic Bomb: The Nuclear Threat to Israel
and the Middle East, New York, Times Books, 1981.
Woodward, Bob, Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA 1981-1987, New York, Simon and
Schuster, 1987.
NOTES:
1 Tillman, The United States in the Middle East, p. 38; also see Green, Living by the
Sword, pp. 135-52; Hersh, The Samson Option, pp. 8-10; Raviv and Melman, Every Spy a
Prince, pp. 25-52.
2 Spector, Nuclear Proliferation Today, pp. 167-75; George Lardner Jr., and R. Jeffrey
Smith, Washington Post, 12/16/92. Also see Elaine Sciolino, New York Times, 11/30/92;
Jack Anderson and Michael Binstein, Op-ed, "Iran
's Nuclear Ambitions," Washington Post, 12/20/ 92.
3 Tillman, The United States in the Middle East, pp. 38-9.
4 Ibid. , p. 39, and Institute for Palestine Studies, International Documents on
Palestine, 1981, pp. 181-91.
5 The earlier uses were on April 5, 1978 and Aug. 6, 1979.
6 New York Times, 8/18/81, and Report by the Comptroller General, "U.S. Assistance to
the State of Israel," General Accounting Office, GAO/ID-83-51, June 24, 1983, pp. 24-5.
7 Institute for Palestine Studies, International Documents on Palestine, 1981, p. 206.
8 Ibid., p. 210.
9 Woodward, Veil, p. 160.
10 Transcript, Inman press conference, Austin, TX, 1/18/94; excerpts are in the
Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, February/March 1994.
11 Transcript, Inman press conference, Austin, TX, 1/18/94.
12 Ostrovsky and Hoy, By Way of Deception, pp. 1-28, and Raviv and Melman, Every Spy a
Prince, pp. 250-2.
13 In addition to Ostrovsky and Hoy, and Raviv and Melman, see Weissman and Krosney,
The Islamic Bomb, pp. 227-8, and Spector, Nuclear Proliferation Today , p. 176.
14 Ostrovsky and Hoy, By Way of Deception, p. 23.
15 Spector, Nuclear Proliferation Today, pp. 176-7.
16 Steven, The Spymasters of Israel , pp. 145-7l Also see Bar-Zohar, Ben-Gurion, pp.
301-2; Nakhleh, Encyclopedia of the Palestine Problem, p. 832; Neff, Warriors for
Jerusalem, pp. 101-2; and Raviv and Melman, Every Spy
a Prince , pp. 122-5. Also see Insight Team, the Sunday Times of London, 9/23/72, for
a history of Israel's introduction of the use of letterbombs in the Middle East.
17 Bar-Zohar, Ben-Gurion, pp. 301-2.
18 Donald Neff, "The U.S., Iraq, Israel and Iran: Backdrop to War," Journal of
Palestine Studies, Summer 1991.
*Available from theAET Book Club.
Donald Neff is author of the Warriors trilogy on U.S.-Middle East relations and of the
unpublished Middle East Handbook, a chronological data bank of significant events
affecting U.S. policy and the Middle East on which t
his article is based. His books are available through the AET Book Club.
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