The Real Story of Osirak

With all that is going on in the Middle East why don't we review the Israeli air raid, on an Iraqi nuclear reactor, more than forty years ago. This is from the compound posting "Investigations".

On June 7, 1981, the Israeli Air Force launched a surprise long-range mission which bombed and destroyed the Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak. Iraq had originally purchased the reactor technology from France. The purported reason for the raid was to prevent Iraq from gaining  a nuclear weapon which could well be used against Israel.

The raid was condemned across the world. Even Iran, which was at war with Iraq, condemned the raid. But much of the condemnation seemed to be somewhat half-hearted. While one nation should not be allowed to launch an air raid against another, much of the world also felt that it would be a more dangerous place if Iraq had nuclear weapons.

Iran, in the course of the ongoing war with Iraq, had earlier bombed the reactor itself, in what was known as Operation Scorch Sword. But the reactor had not been seriously damaged in that raid. The first thing that is confusing about it is that there is information online that Iran actually supplied Israel with aerial photo reconnaissance of the site, yet Iran condemned the raid when it was bombed.

My conclusion is that the Israeli bombing mission was really directed at Iran.

The Iran Hostage Crisis, where Americans from the staff of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran had been held for 444 days, had recently ended with the hostages being released. On April 24, 1980, a rescue attempt had been made to free the hostages. The mission was aborted when it was decided that there were not enough serviceable helicopters left to ensure a successful mission. The tragic accident occurred after the mission had been aborted when the rotor blade of a helicopter struck an aircraft.

Two months before the Israeli air attack on Osirak, Iran had undertaken an extremely complex aerial mission against Iraq. On the far side of Iraq, near the border with Jordan and Syria, was a complex of airfields known as H3 to guard Iraq's western border area. A large number of military aircraft were parked there, some seemingly recently imported, out of the reach of the Iranian Air Force which would like to destroy the planes on the ground.

A fleet of Iranian planes flew all the way there on a very long-range mission. The planes had to refuel in the air several times. They flew at low altitude, to avoid radar detection, right along the borders between Turkey and Iraq, and between Syria and Iraq. That way, if they were picked up on radar, each country would conclude that they were just patrolling the border of the other country. The following image is from the Wikipedia article "H-3 Airstrike".

Syria was supportive of Iran during the war and we have to wonder if the government of Syria was aware of the mission. Since H3 is not far from the border between Iraq and Syria, did it even inform Iran about the planes?

Two Boeing 747 planes were involved in the Iranian mission. One was an aerial command post and the other was a refueling plane. Both of these took off from Turkey, which was unaware of their mission, and joined the other planes. At the time of the operation, another Iranian air operation was launched elsewhere, to divert the attention of the Iraqi Air Force.

The mission was a great success and, as far as I can see, the Iranians suffered no losses and made it back home with no mishaps. They claimed to have destroyed 48 Iraqi planes on the ground. The Iraqis scoffed at the claims and said that only one plane was damaged in the raid. The data gained by the U.S. is that the raid was a success, but it was likely somewhat fewer than 48 Iraqi planes that were destroyed.

This complex Iranian mission was virtually a mirror image of the U.S. attempt to rescue it's hostages the year before. Except that the mission was to destroy planes rather than rescue hostages. The mission was, as much as anything, a jab at the United States. Iran wanted to show that it could pull off perfectly a mission that was just about as complex as the one that the U.S. attempted, Operation Eagle Claw.

But the successful Iranian bombing mission came uncomfortably close to Israel. The planes had flown a very long distance to get there, and the H3 complex was within 375 km (250 miles) of Jerusalem. It was closer to Jerusalem than it was to Baghdad. Israel was closely watching the Iran-Iraq War, as both were potential enemies.

Could this be what really prompted the Israeli bombing mission against Osirak? To remind Iran of Israel's capabilities in destroying a reactor that a similar Iranian raid had failed to destroy?

Israel surely knew that the world would condemn the raid. France was actively involved in operating the reactor that it had sold to Iraq and had assured Israel that it could not produce a nuclear weapon. But Israel thought it imperative to launch the raid anyway. Israel seemed to see that the Iranian raid on H3 was to show up America, so Israel followed the same formula and showed up Iran by a long-distance air mission that succeeded in destroying the reactor that an Iranian mission had earlier been unable to.

But then this brings us to something else. Exactly three weeks after the Israeli bombing of Osirak, a massive bomb exploded during a meeting of Iran's ruling party. More than seventy of the most important people in the government were killed. The event is known as the Hafte Tir Bombing. It is really a credit to Iran's Revolution that it survived this.

My understanding is that a sound technician was setting up speakers. The speakers were brought in on a cart, and the bomb was hidden in the cart. Another story is that the bomb was hidden in a garbage can.

The blame fell on the organization known as the Mujahedin e Khalq. The organization, advocating a kind of blend of Islam and Marxist principles, had long been opposed to the Shah of Iran. They sided with Ayatollah Khomeini, and helped him overthrow the Shah, but the alliance didn't last long, and they had been vigorously opposing the Revolution, eventually siding with Iraq in the Iran-Iraq War.

But there is a persistent story that the Mossad, Israel's intelligence service encouraged the bombing, and possibly supplied the bomb.

I do not really believe that Israel had anything to do with the bombing. But here is what I do believe.

In early 2018 Mossad agents broke into a warehouse in Tehran. They removed a vast archive of documentation about Iran's nuclear program. Benjamin Netanyahu went on television to denounce Iran for lying in claiming that it was not seeking to develop nuclear weapons.

But that was not what it was really about.

The real message was, going back to 1981, to show Iran up again. The operation to get those nuclear records is reminiscent of the U.S. attempt to get in, get it's people being held hostage, and get safely out. It was also reminiscent of the Israeli hostage rescue mission at Entebbe in 1976.

The message to Iran was to be very careful because Israeli agents can operate in Iran without getting caught. Also, whether or not Israel had anything to do with it, don't forget the Hafte Tir Bombing, which wiped out much of the Iranian Government, because it could happen again.