Raid on the Sun (30 page)

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.

F
rench 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.

I
sraeli 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.

C
hief 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.

D
eputy 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.

T
he 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.

T
he 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.

E
nd 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