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title aliases created updated tags category summary start location relations
Osirak bombing
Osirak bombing
Operation Opera
Operation Babylon
Osirak
Osiraq
Osirak raid
Raid on Osirak
Israeli strike on Osirak
Tammuz reactor
2026-05-17 2026-10-07
Event
Military
Israel
Iraq
France
Iran
Nuclear
Mossad
NuclearProliferation
KH11
Major Conflict The June 7, 1981 Israeli strike on Iraq's French-supplied Osirak reactor drew Security Council Resolution 487 and a U.S. suspension of F-16 deliveries to Israel. 1981-06-07 Osirak, Iraq
type with reverse start role fn
participant_in Menachem Begin true 1981-06-07 ordered and announced the raid 19
type with reverse start role fn
participant_in Ilan Ramon true 1981-06-07 F-16 pilot, last aircraft in the formation 20
type with reverse start role fn
participant_in Amos Yadlin true 1981-06-07 F-16 pilot in the raid 21
type with reverse start role fn
participant_in Yiftach Spektor true 1981-06-07 F-16 pilot in the raid 20
type with reverse start role fn
participant_in Aviem Sella true 1981-06-07 air force colonel involved in the raid 22
type with reverse start role fn
participant_in Raphael Eitan true 1981-06-07 chief of staff, wrote the order for the strike 20
type with reverse start role fn
participant_in David Ivry true 1981-06-07 commander of the air force, addressee of the order 20

The Osirak bombing (Operation Opera) was the Israeli air strike of June 7, 1981 on the Osirak research reactor at the Tuwaitha nuclear research center near Baghdad, Iraq, a reactor supplied by France. A State Department letter to the Speaker of the United States Congress states that the Israeli Air Force units that took part were reportedly equipped with defense articles furnished by the United States under the Foreign Military Sales program, including F-15 Eagle and F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft.1 Seymour Hersh wrote that Israel had been authorized in 1975 to begin buying seventy-five F-16s "for defensive purposes only," and placed the reactor "twelve miles southeast of Baghdad."2

The French reactor

In 1974 Iraq opened contacts with France on a nuclear cooperation agreement. A State Department cable of June 11, 1981 transmits an Israeli Foreign Ministry briefing paper issued on June 9, which states that Iraq first asked for a 500 megawatt gas-graphite reactor, a type developed in France in the 1950s, primarily for producing hundreds of kilograms of plutonium for military use. France declined, on the ground that production of that reactor type had been discontinued years earlier. Iraq then bought an Osiris-type research reactor, which the Iraqis named Osirak, and a one megawatt training reactor of the ISIS type. Both were in the final stages of completion at Tuwaitha.3

The same paper states that Iraq insisted France supply fuel enriched to 93 percent, and that France undertook to provide about 82 kilograms of weapon-grade uranium for operating the reactors, which it says came from France's military arsenal, the force de frappe.3 The Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman, identified in the cable only as Lavi, said on June 11 that for five years Israel had tried to persuade France not to provide Iraq with a nuclear weapons capability.4

A Central Intelligence Agency intelligence assessment of June 1983 lists the French consortium CERBAG as general contractor for the 17 Tammuz project. It states that CERBAG was controlled by Technicatome, the Societe Generale pour les Techniques Nouvelles, Comsip Entreprise, the Constructions Navales et Industrielles de la Mediterranee (CNIM) and Bouygues Offshore. The same assessment designates the Osirak reactor as Tammuz-1 and the 800-kilowatt ISIS reactor as Tammuz-2 and states that each reactor was to be fueled with about 12 kilograms of 93-percent-enriched uranium.5 Hersh wrote, citing French and Israeli officials he interviewed, that many of the French companies that had built Dimona in the early 1960s were working under contract for Iraq, with the approval of the French Commissariat a l'energie atomique, at the time of the Osirak bombing.6

Sabotage at Seyne-sur-Mer, 1979

In mid-1979 France was reported not to have abandoned its commitment to supply Iraq with two experimental reactors "to replace those mysteriously blown up in April at La Seyne-sur-Mer shortly before they were to be shipped to Iraq."7

The Israeli nuclear engineer Micky Ron, a former Dimona scientist, described the operation in his Hebrew memoir "The Quiet Sabra." According to his account, in 1979 Israel launched an operation at La Seyne-sur-Mer, west of Toulon, against warehouses of a company that made parts for nuclear ships and reactors, setting off a series of explosions to destroy tank cores bound for Iraq that were to be loaded on a ship days later. The explosions, in his account, heavily damaged but did not completely destroy the tank, and that an hour after the explosion an anonymous caller told French newspapers that an unknown organization of environmental activists had claimed responsibility. It adds that French intelligence suspected the caller was from the Mossad psychological warfare and disinformation division.8 The CIA assessment of 1983 lists CNIM among the companies controlling CERBAG.5

The Paris weekly L'Express reported on October 18, 1980 that Israeli commandos "had already sabotaged the core of the La Seyne reactor near Toulon."9

The killing of Yahia El-Meshad, 1980

Yahya El Mashad, an Egyptian-born nuclear scientist who worked in the Iraqi program, was found dead in a room at the Hotel Meridien in Paris in June 1980. ABC News reported in 2010 that French police found him on June 14, 1980, bludgeoned to death, that the body of a prostitute believed to have witnessed the killing was found later, that no one was arrested, and that press accounts said the French suspected Israeli intelligence.10 The journalist Ronen Bergman wrote in Newsweek in December 2010 that Mossad agents came across El Mashad by chance in the hotel, had orders to kill him on sight, and, lacking their weapons, broke into his room and beat him to death, and that a prostitute who told police she heard what sounded like an argument outside the room died in a hit-and-run shortly after her preliminary statement.11 In The Christian Science Monitor of October 10, 1991, Victor Ostrovsky, a former Mossad officer who wrote a book about the agency, was reported as claiming that Israel's intelligence service killed Vahia al-Mashad, who headed Iraq's nuclear project, during a June 1980 trip to Paris to complete a deal for Iraq; the article states that an Israeli Embassy official in Washington did not respond to requests for comment and that Mashad's widow went to Baghdad, where the Iraqi government supported her family because he "had died in the line of duty."12

Senator Alan Cranston told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on June 18, 1981 that he had learned from non-International Atomic Energy Agency sources that El-Meshad, "the Egyptian-born scientist who was a principal in the Iraqi program until he was murdered in Paris last year," had unsuccessfully advocated Egyptian production of nuclear weapons through the same course the Iraqis were apparently pursuing. Cranston listed that course as the purchase of a very large high-flux materials test reactor, irradiation of fuel elements and a uranium blanket in the reactor core to produce plutonium, and development of a small-scale reprocessing capability to separate the plutonium from unsafeguarded uranium.13

The Iranian strike of September 30, 1980

Tom Cooper and Farzad Bishop wrote in Air Enthusiast (March/April 2004) that the Iranian operation against Tuwaitha, which they name Operation Scorch Sword, followed Iraq's invasion of Iran on September 22, 1980, the start of the Iran-Iraq War. They wrote that on September 27, 1980 the Israeli military intelligence chief Yehoshua Saguy publicly expressed surprise that Iran had not yet attempted to bomb the Iraqi reactor under construction, and that the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force planned the strike on an Israeli suggestion that it target the nuclear research laboratories, the reactor control building and the training facilities rather than the reactor itself. According to their account, four F-4 Phantom II of the 33rd Tactical Fighter Squadron took off from Hamedan on September 30, refueled from a Boeing 707 tanker escorted by F-14 Tomcat, and split into two pairs, one of which struck a power plant south of Baghdad while the other released twelve Mk.82 bombs on the Tuwaitha site in six seconds without drawing fire. They wrote that Western reports regarded the strike as a miss or as causing minor damage, that Iraq and France called it a failure, that repairs were reported finished by the end of November 1980, and that Iraq and France suspected the aircraft had come from Israel. They also wrote that French intelligence services later reported the attack was carried out by "two unidentified Israeli Phantoms," that Israel denied this, and that an Iranian RF-4E reconnaissance flight over Tuwaitha on November 30, 1980 "became so important for the Israelis."14

The CIA National Intelligence Daily of October 1, 1980 states that a redacted source "has confirmed press reports that two Iranian F-4 fighters damaged the Iraqi nuclear research center in Baghdad," and, in a redacted clause, that "only secondary buildings were hit"; it adds that neither country's military capability had been seriously damaged by the other's air attacks.15

On October 18, 1980 L'Express reported that the outer concrete dome of the Osirak building showed only limited visible damage, that the 75 French technicians present "when the bombing took place" had been "enjoined to remain silent," and that the project would fall at least a year behind schedule. The article attributed the attack to two Israeli Phantom aircraft that, it said, took the shortest route and flew over southern Syria. It quoted an unnamed "top French intelligence source" who called the flyers "magnificent pilots," and it reported that Israeli denials on the day after the raid had called the reports "antisemitic slanders."9 The same article reported that technicians from the French Atomic Energy Commission had serious misgivings as the date for the reactor's service approached, because the reactor could rapidly give Iraq a nuclear military capability.9

Jack Anderson, writing with Ron McRae in a Washington Post column of June 16, 1981, wrote that he had reported on September 30, 1980 that the Defense Intelligence Agency had warned President Jimmy Carter that the Israelis were planning to "take out" the Iraqi nuclear plant, and that an unsuccessful air strike against Osirak occurred on the day his column appeared. Because it came in the first days of the Iraqi-Iranian war, he wrote, it was widely supposed to be an Iranian venture. He wrote that the plane involved was an F-4 Phantom, "a jet the United States has supplied to both Iran and Israel," and that some intelligence people suspected an Israeli action although Israel did not claim the attack.16 Anderson quoted a Defense Intelligence Agency estimate from about eight months before the raid: "Prudently, we must assume that Israel is considering some sort of action to forestall Iraqi acquisition of a nuclear capability."16

At the State Department briefing of June 8, 1981, a reporter asked about "the alleged Iranian attack on this same facility" early in the Iran-Iraq War, and whether there had been charges at the time that it might have been an Israeli attack. The spokesman said he was "not confirming or denying or commenting on any possible attack last September." Asked whether the Department's first knowledge that the attack had occurred came from Israel, he answered yes.17 A cable reproducing Iraqi statements says that the Iranians had at the time hit the reactor slightly, and reports remarks by Saddam Hussein that the Iranian attack was useless because the reactor was being installed solely against Israel.18

Planning the raid

Hersh wrote that the bombing had been debated at the highest levels of the Israeli government since late 1979. He wrote that Mossad director Yitzhak Hofi and military intelligence chief Saguy opposed the attack, "primarily because there was no evidence that Iraq was as yet capable of building a bomb," and that they were joined in futile dissent by Deputy Prime Minister Yigael Yadin. He wrote that at a late-1980 planning session Saguy argued that the adverse reaction in Washington, D.C. would be a more serious threat to Israel than the Iraqi reactor, and that Saguy was not told of the mission until June 4, three days before it was scheduled.19 The Cooper and Bishop account of September 1980 quoted above attributes to Saguy a public remark of September 27, 1980 about the Iranian air force and the reactor.14

In June 2021 the Israel Defense Forces Archive, as part of a digitization project, published documents on the strike, among them a partially redacted post-operational report that includes the army chief's written order for the strike, a 1980 government decision to plan the operation and deliberations over the date. The release included a note from army chief Raphael Eitan to air force commander David Ivry about delaying the strike by a week because of a summit between Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat.20

The raid

Hersh wrote that the mission planners, anxious to avoid international protest, had gone to extremes to mask the operation, that the Israeli planes were unmarked, and that the attack was carried out in two minutes.19 The Times of Israel reported, on the basis of the IDF Archive release, that Ilan Ramon, later Israel's first astronaut, flew an F-16A in the last plane of the formation, and that a 2001 video recorded at a 20-year reunion of the mission's participants, hosted by the pilot Yiftach Spektor, shows Ramon saying that his mother was a Holocaust survivor who was at Auschwitz and that he expected he might not return. The same report quotes the retired colonel Ze'ev Raz, interviewed in 2016, describing Ramon's stress as the last pilot in the formation and stating that he had not previously dropped a bomb on a live mission.20 Amos Yadlin, who flew in the mission, was described by Mosaic Magazine in February 2023 as Ramon's friend and former flight instructor who flew alongside him in the mission, and as having given an interview about Ramon to Menachem Butler.21 Hersh wrote that Air Force Colonel Aviem Sella, who was later the handler of the spy Jonathan Pollard, had been involved in the 1981 bombing and was one of the Israeli Air Force's leading nuclear bombing and targeting experts.22

The attack and its announcement

Hersh wrote that Begin "stunned his colleagues" by announcing the raid himself on June 8, and on June 9 said that "if the nuclear reactor had not been destroyed, another Holocaust would have happened in the history of the Jewish people."19 A June 21 cable reports that Begin, responding to U.S. criticism, invoked "his familiar Holocaust analogy" and compared the threat of radioactive fallout to the gas used against Jewish children.23

Two days after the raid, at a British diplomatic reception, Begin said the planes had also destroyed a secret facility at Osirak where Iraqi bombs were to be assembled. Hersh wrote that Begin placed the facility forty meters below the reactor, that he said the Iraqi government had hidden it from the IAEA, and that Israeli government spokesmen said the next day that Begin had misspoken and that the depth was four meters. Hersh wrote that the appalled Israeli officials knew the description fitted a facility at Dimona, that Israeli officials told him Begin had visited the underground facility at Dimona and had been given a detailed memorandum about it in the days before the raid, and that one Israeli said of Begin: "He confused one with the other."24 At the State Department briefing of June 12, the spokesman noted that there had been at least one correction from Israel on the depth of the facility.25 In a footnote Hersh wrote that American experts concluded Israel had bombed only one of two major targets at the site, destroying the reactor but leaving the nearby reprocessing plant untouched.26

At the June 12 session of the IAEA Board of Governors, India asked the agency's director general, Sigvard Eklund, to comment on Begin's statement. Eklund answered that the task of safeguards is to verify that no safeguarded nuclear material is diverted, that the agency is not to search facilities that contain no safeguarded material, and that the agency had not detected such a laboratory.27

Hersh wrote that about two weeks after the raid, Hofi gave an unprecedented newspaper interview, cited only by title under Israeli censorship, complaining about politicians who compromised secret intelligence.24 He wrote that Israeli officials said Iraq had begun moving Soviet-supplied Scud missiles closer to the Iraq-Jordan border after the raid, and that Israel had ordered the Dimona reactor and reprocessing plant to cease operations well before the bombing, keeping them out of service through the end of the year.28

Hersh wrote that after the bombing Ariel Sharon concluded that the United States was not a reliable strategic ally, and turned to a clandestine Israeli intelligence agency under his defense ministry, which began intercepting intelligence on the Middle East and Soviet Union from sensitive American agencies.29 Hersh later wrote that Sharon, after the September 1981 meetings in Washington, installed Rafael Eitan, a long-time clandestine operative he called a Sharon crony, as head of LAKAM, the Office of Special Tasks, while Eitan kept his post as Begin's special assistant for counterterrorism.30

Washington's response

Hersh wrote that when Richard V. Allen, the national security adviser, informed Ronald Reagan of the raid by telephone as the President boarded a helicopter at Camp David, Reagan said: "Well. Boys will be boys." He wrote that at a meeting the next morning Caspar Weinberger proposed canceling the F-16 sale, that Vice President George H.W. Bush and Chief of Staff James A. Baker III agreed some sanctions against Israel were essential, and that Reagan, by Allen's account, made clear with a gesture that he had no intention of taking such a step. He wrote that the State Department that afternoon issued a statement formally condemning the bombing, and that Allen recalled Reagan as "delighted" by the attack.231

The Department's public line on June 12 was to wait for the Security Council debate. The spokesman said the Department had "no foreknowledge of Israeli plans for a raid," and that it had noted the Arab League resolution.25

A Tel Aviv cable of June 21 summarizes a Ha'aretz commentary that described an apparent clash between Weinberger and Alexander M. Haig, Jr. over influence on Reagan's Middle East decisions. The commentary noted Weinberger's former business interests in Saudi Arabia and his place in what it called the "California group" around the President. The cable's subject line reports that Begin blasted Weinberger but downplayed the tension.32

The United Nations and the IAEA

The United Nations Security Council began its debate on June 12. On June 19, 1981 it adopted Security Council Resolution 487, which the U.S. mission reported as adopted unanimously. The text strongly condemns the attack as "in clear violation of the United Nations Charter and the norms of international conduct," calls on Israel to refrain from such acts, and considers the attack "a serious threat to the entire IAEA safeguards regime which is the foundation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty." It recognizes Iraq's sovereign right to develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, calls on Israel to place its nuclear facilities under IAEA safeguards, holds that Iraq is entitled to appropriate redress, and asks the Secretary-General to keep the Council informed.33

The U.S. statement by Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick said the United States did "not regard this as a perfect resolution." It noted that the United States had "voted against the resolution in the International Atomic Energy Agency" to which the Security Council text refers, and said that the U.S. judgment that Israeli actions violated the Charter was "based solely on the conviction that Israel failed to exhaust peaceful means for the resolution of this dispute."33

The IAEA Board of Governors adopted a resolution on June 12 on the "military attack on the Iraq nuclear research centre and its implications for the Agency."33 A U.S. summary of the June Board session records that the United States could not support one operative paragraph, because receipt of IAEA assistance "is a right of all IAEA members," and that the draft recommended that the General Conference suspend the exercise by Israel of its privileges.34 The French governor on the Board reported that one French citizen had been killed in the attack and that about ten Iraqis had been wounded.35

Cranston's June 18 statement describes the inspection record. He said he had received four internal documents from American sources within the IAEA, which contained an estimate that Iraq could have produced enough plutonium each year in the Osirak reactor for up to three bombs, and a study conducted for the agency earlier in 1981 concluding that an Osiris-type reactor could produce as much as 24 kilograms of plutonium per year. The most recent inspection in Iraq before the raid, in January 1981, was reportedly conducted with the lights in the facility turned off, was limited to a visual inspection of the fuel, and was carried out by flashlight. Several fuel elements could not be verified because they were locked in a vault and the key could not be located at the time. Cranston also said that since 1976 only Soviet and Hungarian inspectors had visited Iraq, that Iraq had informally exercised a right to object to American inspectors, and that an American inspector at the IAEA in the section responsible for Iraq, Roger Richter, had resigned the previous Tuesday and would testify before the committee.13

F-16 deliveries

On June 10, 1981 the Washington Post reported that the Pentagon said Reagan must decide by Friday whether to proceed with the scheduled delivery of four more F-16s to Israel. Haig said that no decisions had been made about the F-16s awaiting shipment, and that a report by the administration on whether Israel had violated U.S. law by using American-supplied aircraft against the Iraqi installation should be ready in 24 to 48 hours.36

The Secretary of State's letter to Speaker Thomas P. O'Neill states that a substantial violation of the 1952 Mutual Defense Assistance Agreement "may have occurred." The agreement, as the letter quotes it, provides that the equipment "will be used solely to maintain its internal security, its legitimate self-defense, or to permit it to participate in the defense of the area," and that Israel "will not undertake any act of aggression." The letter reports that the President had "directed the suspension for the time being of the immediate shipment of four F-16 aircraft."1

Israel's Foreign Ministry spokesman expressed regret over the suspension and said Israel had acted in self-defense against Iraq, which "declares itself to be in a state of war against Israel since 1948."4 A State Department briefing transcript in the same release records that Israel had ordered 75 F-16s, of which 53 had been delivered.37 Hersh wrote that the White House announced the suspension of the scheduled delivery of four more F-16s, and that two months later, with little fanfare, the suspension was lifted and the aircraft were delivered without incident.31

Soviet television commentary of June 14, as summarized in a State Department cable, said that the raid demonstrated that Begin could act with "impunity."38

Satellite and intelligence claims

A Beirut cable of June 11, 1981 reports that Yasir Arafat claimed the Israeli raid had been carried out "with full assistance from American satellites and radar," and that it took place with official American approval.39

Hersh wrote that a few British intelligence officials immediately suspected that Israel had used high-resolution KH-11 photography to target Osirak and complained to their American counterparts, that high-resolution satellite photographs of the destroyed reactor were on the desks of Washington decision-makers within hours of the mission, and that "the British were right, as a subsequent highly secret investigation showed: Israel had gotten much valuable intelligence from the KH-11." He wrote that William J. Casey, the director of central intelligence, had early in his tenure ordered that Israeli liaison officers be given a private office near CIA headquarters, and that after Osirak he authorized a small ad hoc committee to review the imagery-sharing agreement. According to Hersh, the review found that in little more than two years the Israelis had expanded a limited agreement to the point where they could extract virtually any photograph they wished, including extensive KH-11 coverage of western Russia and Moscow; he quoted one military man as saying "The Israelis did everything except task the bird." Hersh wrote that Casey, who had made a first secret trip to Israel as CIA director a few months earlier, had not been told in advance of the attack.40 He wrote that it was agreed after the review that photographs would continue to flow to Israel with the 1979 restrictions reinforced, that Allen relayed this to Sharon in the fall of 1981, and that the review group accepted Israel's explanation that it had obtained the imagery of the Soviet Union solely to monitor supply links between Russia and its allies in Syria and Iraq.4129

A National Photographic Interpretation Center memorandum of June 27, 1981 reports increased defensive measures around the Baghdad Nuclear Research Center, including 23 barrage balloons around the periphery of the center and the movement of more than half of its antiaircraft defenses, ten antiaircraft guns and two ZSU-23/4 self-propelled guns, to new positions atop earthen barricades on the eastern side. It also reports that three small holes had been made in the roof of the underground building north of the Osirak reactor building and that an unidentified piece of equipment may have been drilling a fourth.42

Anderson's June 16, 1981 column reported that the Pentagon estimated Iraq had enough raw material for as many as four bombs and could have one ready for testing within six months. Anderson wrote that American intelligence analysts feared the raid might have accelerated the nuclear arms race, and that the Soviet-built reactor, which was not hit, could be used to assemble Iraqi bombs.16

Anderson's June 18, 1981 column quoted a Defense Intelligence Agency report written several months before the raid: "Iraq has certainly developed a nuclear capability, unmatched by its allies, with a potential for threatening Israel which has not existed before."43

Mossad and the uranium reports

On June 23, 1981 a Tel Aviv cable reported that Israeli media had carried reports that Brazil had warned Israel relations were under review over reports, allegedly spread by Mossad, that Brazil had supplied eight tons of uranium to Iraq. The cable records that the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth stated it had been made clear to the Brazilian Foreign Ministry that the reports were "a figment of the imagination and totally groundless," and it notes that the Israeli journalist Uri Dan had written on June 16 that Iraq had procured hundreds of tons of uranium from Portugal, Nigeria, Brazil and elsewhere in addition to French deliveries.44

On June 25, 1981 a Tel Aviv cable reported that the head of Mossad, who is never publicly identified by name in Israel, had initiated a newspaper interview the previous week with the Ha'aretz military correspondent Ze'ev Schiff. The cable describes the interview as an "apparently almost desperate attempt to stem the flood of intelligence and related data being announced and published on the Iraqi reactor raid." In it the Mossad head said that damage had already been caused in the intelligence sphere, that sources had been endangered, and that there were risks to their willingness to cooperate "with us." The cable reports that the day after the interview appeared, Begin reportedly reprimanded the head of Mossad, and that a source said Begin had merely called the Mossad director's attention to the unusual nature of the interview.45 Hersh wrote that the interview was Hofi's.24

  1. U.S. Department of State, Secretary of State to Speaker Thomas P. O'Neill, letter on the Israeli attack and the Arms Export Control Act, 1981. FOIA case F-1982-00753, document C09000101. https://archive.org/details/F-1982-00753 ↩︎

  2. Hersh, Seymour M. The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy. Random House, 1991, p. 8 (chapter 1, "A Secret Agreement"). Sole source for the passages so cited. ↩︎

  3. U.S. Department of State, Tel Aviv embassy cable 9271, June 11, 1981, "MFA Briefing Paper on Israeli 'Raid' on Iraqi Nuclear Reactor," text of the Foreign Ministry briefing paper of June 9. FOIA case F-1982-00753, document C09000187. https://archive.org/details/F-1982-00753 ↩︎

  4. U.S. Department of State, Tel Aviv embassy cable 9282, June 11, 1981, "Israel 'Regrets' U.S. Decision to Suspend Delivery of F-16s." FOIA case F-1982-00753, document C09000119. https://archive.org/details/F-1982-00753 ↩︎

  5. Central Intelligence Agency, Directorate of Intelligence, The Iraqi Nuclear Program: Progress Despite Setbacks, intelligence assessment SW 83-10040CX, June 1983 (information as of May 1, 1983). CIA Reading Room document 0000875771. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-0000875771 ↩︎

  6. Hersh, The Samson Option, p. 64, note. Sole source for the passage so cited. ↩︎

  7. Joint Publications Research Service, Near East/North Africa Report, JPRS L/8560, July 6, 1979 (FOUO 28/79), reprinting a 1979 article copyright IC Magazines Ltd. CIA CREST document cia-rdp82-00850r000100070005-8. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp82-00850r000100070005-8 ↩︎

  8. "Seeking to thwart Iraq's nuclear programme, Israel bombed French warehouse, book claims," Middle East Monitor, June 14, 2021, summarizing a Ha'aretz article based on Michael (Micky) Ron, The Quiet Sabra (Hebrew memoir). Sole source for the passages so cited; the Mossad attribution is Ron's. https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20210614-seeking-to-thwart-iraqs-nuclear-programme-israel-bombed-french-warehouse-book-claims/ ↩︎

  9. L'Express (Paris), October 18, 1980, p. 125, "Damage to Osirak Dome Reported," reprinted in Joint Publications Research Service, Worldwide Report: Nuclear Development and Proliferation, JPRS L/9433, December 9, 1980, pp. 33-34. CIA CREST document cia-rdp82-00850r000300060014-7. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp82-00850r000300060014-7 ↩︎

  10. Mark Schone, "Israel's Greatest Hits: Before Dubai, a History of Targeted Killing," ABC News, February 2010. https://abcnews.com/Blotter/israels-greatest-hits-dubai-history-targeted-killing-now/story?id=9856671 ↩︎

  11. Ronen Bergman, "Killing the Killers," Newsweek, December 13, 2010. Sole source for the passages so cited. https://www.newsweek.com/killing-killers-69081 ↩︎

  12. Carol Berger, "Iraqi Files Seized By UN Inspectors Seen As Possible 'Hit Lists'," The Christian Science Monitor, October 10, 1991. Sole source for the Ostrovsky claim. https://csmonitor.com/1991/1010/10032.html ↩︎

  13. Statement of Senator Alan Cranston before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, June 18, 1981, as transmitted in State Department cable STATE 160720 to the Vienna embassy. FOIA case F-1982-00753, document C09000073. https://archive.org/details/F-1982-00753 ↩︎

  14. Cooper, Tom, and Farzad Bishop. "Target: Saddam's Reactor: Israeli and Iranian Operations Against Iraqi Plans to Develop Nuclear Weapons." Air Enthusiast 110 (March/April 2004). Sole source for the passages so cited. ↩︎

  15. Central Intelligence Agency, National Intelligence Daily, October 1, 1980 (CO NID 80-231JX), Situation Report, Iraq-Iran, pp. 1-2; released August 2005. https://unredacted.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/iran-iraq1.pdf ↩︎

  16. Jack Anderson with Ron McRae, "Raid by Israel May Fuel A-Arms Race," Washington Post, June 16, 1981. CIA CREST document cia-rdp90-00965r000100160090-8. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00965r000100160090-8 ↩︎

  17. U.S. Department of State, press briefing transcript of June 8, 1981, transmitted as cable STATE 149439. FOIA case F-1982-00753, document C09000012. https://archive.org/details/F-1982-00753 ↩︎

  18. State Department cable reproducing Iraqi statements on the reactor. FOIA case F-1982-00753, document C09000088. https://archive.org/details/F-1982-00753 ↩︎

  19. Hersh, The Samson Option, pp. 9-10. Sole source for the passages so cited. ↩︎

  20. "40 years after Iraq reactor raid, IDF reveals Ilan Ramon's fears, intel sketches," The Times of Israel, June 22, 2021, reporting an IDF Archive and Defense Ministry release. https://www.timesofisrael.com/40-years-after-iraq-reactor-raid-idf-reveals-ilan-ramons-fears-intel-sketches/ ↩︎

  21. "Remembering Ilan Ramon, Astronaut and Hero," Mosaic Magazine, February 2, 2023 (introduction to an interview of Amos Yadlin by Menachem Butler). https://ideas.tikvah.org/mosaic/picks/remembering-ilan-ramon-astronaut-and-hero ↩︎

  22. Hersh, The Samson Option, p. 286. Sole source for the passage so cited. ↩︎

  23. State Department cable of June 21, 1981 reporting Begin's remarks on U.S. criticism of the raid. FOIA case F-1982-00753, document C09000026. https://archive.org/details/F-1982-00753 ↩︎

  24. Hersh, The Samson Option, pp. 10-11. Sole source for the passages so cited. ↩︎

  25. U.S. Department of State, press briefing transcript of June 12, 1981, "Department Press Briefing June 12, 1981." FOIA case F-1982-00753, document C09000098. https://archive.org/details/F-1982-00753 ↩︎

  26. Hersh, The Samson Option, p. 10, note. Sole source for the passage so cited. ↩︎

  27. U.S. Mission to Vienna cable 6873, June 12, 1981, "Israeli Attack on Iraqi Nuclear Reactor: Further Statement by IAEA Director General," with the text of Sigvard Eklund's statement. FOIA case F-1982-00753, document C09000058. https://archive.org/details/F-1982-00753 ↩︎

  28. Hersh, The Samson Option, p. 12. Sole source for the passages so cited. ↩︎

  29. Hersh, The Samson Option, p. 16. Sole source for the passages so cited. ↩︎

  30. Hersh, The Samson Option, pp. 287-288. Sole source for the passage so cited. ↩︎

  31. Hersh, The Samson Option, p. 9. Sole source for the passages so cited. ↩︎

  32. Tel Aviv embassy cable of June 21, 1981, "Begin Blasts Weinberger but Downplays Tension," summarizing a Ha'aretz commentary. FOIA case F-1982-00753, document C09000126. https://archive.org/details/F-1982-00753 ↩︎

  33. U.S. Mission to the United Nations cable 2074, June 19, 1981, transmitting the text of Security Council Resolution 487 and the U.S. statement by Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick. FOIA case F-1982-00753, document C09000076. https://archive.org/details/F-1982-00753 ↩︎

  34. U.S. Mission to Vienna cable on the June 1981 IAEA Board session, "IAEA June Board: Israeli Attack on Iraqi Nuclear Research Center." FOIA case F-1982-00753, document C09000051. https://archive.org/details/F-1982-00753 ↩︎

  35. U.S. Mission to Vienna cable 6711, June 1981, "IAEA Board of Governors: Israeli Attack." FOIA case F-1982-00753, document C09000008. https://archive.org/details/F-1982-00753 ↩︎

  36. State Department cable STATE 151497, June 10, 1981, "Morning News Summary of Wednesday, June 10, 1981," quoting George C. Wilson and John P. Goshko, Washington Post. FOIA case F-1982-00753, document C09000025. https://archive.org/details/F-1982-00753 ↩︎

  37. State Department press briefing transcript (question on the status of F-16 transfers). FOIA case F-1982-00753, document C09000090. https://archive.org/details/F-1982-00753 ↩︎

  38. State Department cable 156211, June 15, 1981, "Soviet Media on Israel's Attack," reporting the Moscow embassy's summary of Soviet coverage. FOIA case F-1982-00753, document C09000066. https://archive.org/details/F-1982-00753 ↩︎

  39. Beirut embassy cable, June 11, 1981, "Israeli Raid on Iraq: Claims of U.S. Involvement." FOIA case F-1982-00753, document C09000042. https://archive.org/details/F-1982-00753 ↩︎

  40. Hersh, The Samson Option, pp. 12-14 and p. 13, note. Sole source for the passages so cited. ↩︎

  41. Hersh, The Samson Option, p. 15. Sole source for the passages so cited. ↩︎

  42. National Photographic Interpretation Center, "Increased Defensive Measures, Baghdad Nuclear Research Center, Iraq," attachment to memorandum Z-30587/81, June 27, 1981. CIA CREST document cia-rdp81t00618r000100820001-8. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp81t00618r000100820001-8 ↩︎

  43. Jack Anderson, "Pentagon Pipeline," Washington Post, June 18, 1981, quoting a Defense Intelligence Agency report. CIA CREST document cia-rdp90-00965r000100160089-0. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00965r000100160089-0 ↩︎

  44. Tel Aviv embassy cable 9921, June 23, 1981, "Israel Denies 'Mossad' Has Spread Allegations That Brazil Supplied Uranium to Iraq." FOIA case F-1982-00753, document C09000143. https://archive.org/details/F-1982-00753 ↩︎

  45. Tel Aviv embassy cable 10019, June 25, 1981, "Mossad Concerned About GOI Intelligence Leaks." FOIA case F-1982-00753, document C09000149. https://archive.org/details/F-1982-00753 ↩︎