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40 years ago - Operation Opera: Israel destroyed Iraq's nuclear program and saved the West
[Arutz7] - In the late 1970s, Iraq purchased an "Osiris class" nuclear reactor from France (some things never change). Israeli military intelligence assumed this was for plutonium production to further an Iraqi nuclear weapons program. Israeli intelligence also believed that the summer of 1981 would be the last chance to destroy the reactor without exposing the Iraqi civilian population to nuclear fallout. After that point, the reactor would be loaded with nuclear fuel.Israel prevented a nuclear Iraq ...Israel first pursued a diplomatic solution to the situation. ...In meetings with Defense Secretary Casper Weinberger and Secretary of State Alexander Haig, there was agreement about the Israeli assessment regarding the Iraqi nuclear threat. American representatives even verified Israeli assessments that Iraq was working to reach nuclear capability and exploit the ability to influence and destroy Israel. Despite the American consensus, the Americans refused to act. Perhaps because they did not truly grasp the danger or did not want to upset Iraq, which was fighting America’s enemy, Iran. "Yitzchak Shamir, negotiated with French presidents Valery Giscard-D’Estaing and his successor Francois Mitterand. The French proved intransigent, looking out for their own economic interests as Iraq was by far their top customer for military hardware. The payments to France came mostly in the form of oil. [Then as now the French Government couldn't care less about dead Jews] As the IDF reported it: "4 pm, the evening before the Shavout holiday, 1981, orders were given to begin operations. At 5:35.a squadron of IAF F-16 fighter aircraft flew over Iraqi skies and dropped a number of bombs. The nuclear reactor was completely destroyed. Mission accomplished. One after another, the pilots shouted the code word "Alpha" into their radios, signaling their success. Zev Raz, Amus Yadlin, Chagi katz, Amir Nahumi, Yiftach Spector, Yisraeli Shapir, and Ilan Ramon- changed history, erasing the nuclear threat of the enemy." History never repeats itself, but it often rhymes Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2021-06-08 |
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