Loading ...“Operation Opera, also known as Operation Babylon, was a surprise Israeli air strike carried out on 7 June 1981, which destroyed an Iraqi nuclear reactor under construction 17 kilometers southeast of Baghdad.”
I remember those days. They waited until the plant was completed. Long story below
part: “Once in charge, Hussein stepped up his efforts to make Iraq a nuclear power to counteract Israel’s supposed nuclear capacity. Trading on the diplomatic and financial contacts he had made with France earlier in the decade, Hussein completed a deal in 1975 in which the European nation agreed to sell Iraq the equipment necessary to construct a nuclear reactor at al-Tuwaitha,
Over the next 15 months, a number of key nuclear scientists from Iraq and other Arab countries were assassinated by Israeli agents while the scientist were visiting western Europe. The spate of suspicious deaths, including throat cuttings, hit-and-run automobile accidents, sudden flu-like illnesses, and virulent “food poisoning,” greatly slowed the pace of research on Iraq’s nuclear program, but Hussein continued pressing forward. “How could a people who only know how to ride camels produce an atomic bomb?” he scoffed ”
The next blow to Iraq’s nuclear efforts came nine days after the start of the Iran-Iraq War, on Sept 30, 1980, when Iran sent two Phantom F-4-E jets to attack several Iraqi targets, among them the uncompleted nuclear reactors at al-Tuwaitha.
The world universally condemned Israel’s action, including the United States. The Reagan administration, normally sympathetic to Israel, chose to condemn the attack through a speech by American UN ambassador Jeanne Kirkpatrick, who called the raid “shocking” and compared it to the recent Soviet incursion into Afghanistan.