Shapiro, Zalman
Sharif, Husham
Sharon, Ariel
Shi’ites, in Iraq
Shostak, Eliezer
Six-Day War
smart bombs
SNIA Technit
Soviet Union: Israeli requests for intelligence access; military alliance with Egypt; military alliance with Iraq; reactor sale to Iraq
Spector, Iftach; addition to squadron; after mission completion; bombing misses; during mission; final preparations and takeoff; on mission day; at 2001 reunion
Suez War of 1956
Sunnis, in Iraq
Syria; Bekaa Valley missile deployment; reaction to air strike; in Yom Kippur War
T
Talfah, Khairallah
Tamerlane
Tammuz. See also Nuclear Research Center of Atomic Energy; Osirak reactor
Thatcher, Margaret
Three Mile Island
Tikrit
Tsomet
Turner, Stansfield
Tzitori, Mordechai
U
Uganda, Entebbe airport raid
United Arab Emirates, reaction to air strike
United Nations: condemnation of air strike; Iraq weapons inspections
United States: reaction to air strike; relations with Iraq; relations with Israel; Tehran hostage rescue mission; trade with Iraq; view of Iraqi reactor purchase; view of Israeli reactor construction
U.S. Air Force training school, Hill Air Force Base
U.S. Arms Export Control Act
U.S. Atomic Energy Commission; Dimona reactor inspection
U.S. Central Intelligence Agency
U.S. Defense Information Agency
U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency
U.S. Department of Defense; arms sales to Arab states; F-16 sale to Israel
U.S.-Iraq conflicts: Gulf War/Desert Storm; Iraq War (2003)
U.S. National Security Administration; KH-11 reconnaissance satellite
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)
U.S. State Department
uranium: bombing miss; enrichment processes; French sale to Iraq; Iraqi ore import negotiations; NRC enrichment efforts
USS Liberty attack
W
Weinberger, Caspar
Weizman, Ezer
West Germany: nuclear negotiations with Iraq; reaction to Osirak air strike
Wolfowitz, Paul,
Y
Yadin, Yigael
Yadlin, Amos; aircraft switch with Raz; during mission; at final briefing; May 10 mission cancellation; mission preparation; Spector and; at 2001 reunion
Yadlin, Karen
Yaffe, Avraham
Yaffe, Dov
Yaffe, Dov “Doobi”; after mission completion; during mission; final preparations and takeoff; mission preparation; on eve of mission; at USAF F-16 training school
Yaffe, Michal
Yaffe, Mitka
Yaffe, Yossi
Yemen
Yom Kippur War
Z
Zionist Organization of America
Zuckerman, Mort
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
RODGER W. CLAIRE, a former magazine editor, is the first journalist to have been granted complete access to all of the individuals involved in the raid on Osirak and to classified materials detailing it. The author of numerous articles and two screenplays, he lives in Los Angeles.
French Prime Minister Jacques Chirac shares a laugh with Saddam Hussein during his first trip to Baghdad in 1974 to discuss selling Iraq a nuclear reactor. The two leaders would remain friends for nearly three decades.
Israeli Air Force Gen. David Ivry spent four years devising the precision attack on Iraq’s Osirak reactor, the first time in history that a nuclear reactor was bombed.
Chief of Israeli Military Intelligence Gen. Yehoushua Saguy shocked Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and the mission planners when he opposed any preemptive strike against the Osirak reactor.
IDF Chief of Staff Gen. Raful Eitan escorts Begin past the mission squadron’s F-16s on a tour of Ramat David Air Force Base the day after the raid on Osirak.
Deputy Prime Minister Yigael Yadin takes the podium to celebrate the delivery of Israel’s first four American-made F-16s on July 2, 1980. Yadin would later oppose using the planes to attack Osirak.
The sleek, technologically advanced F-16s flew just 100 feet off the ground through hot, unstable desert air for 600 miles to Baghdad in order to avoid enemy radar.
The mission’s youngest pilot, Ilan Ramon, was later chosen to be Israel’s first astronaut. He perished in the Columbia space shuttle accident in February 2003.
End of a dream: the ruins of Osirak and the surrounding al-Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center marked the beginning of the end of Hussein’s plan to make Iraq a nuclear power.
RAID ON THE SUN. Copyright © 2004 by Rodger W. Claire.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information, address Broadway Books, a division of Random House, Inc.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Claire, Rodger William.
Raid on the sun : inside Israel’s secret campaign that denied Saddam
the bomb / Rodger W. Claire.— 1st ed.
p. cm.
1. Arab-Israeli conflict—Iraq. 2. Osirak Nuclear Reactor Bombing,
Iraq, 1981. 3. Nuclear reactors—Iraq. I. Title.
DS119.7.C574 2004
956.7044'1—dc22
2003055887
Photo credits, in order of appearance: Osirak mission pilots © Israel Defense Forces; Saddam Hussein and Jacques Chirac © AP/Wide World; David Ivry © David Rubinger/Corbis; Yehoshua Saguy © AP/Wide World; Menachem Begin and Raphael Eitan © AP/Wide World; Yigel Yadin and F-16 © David Rubinger/Corbis; F-16 in flight © Aero Graphics, Inc./Corbis; Ilan Ramon © Reuters NewMedia Inc./Corbis; desolated site of Osirak © AFP/Corbis
eISBN: 978-0-7679-1808-4
v3.0