1981: Israel’s Deadly Air Force Took out Saddam Hussein’s Only Nuclear Reactor

By Robert Farley,The National Interest

What if Israel had not struck Iraq’s Osirak reactor in 1981? Or what if the attack, which was technically quite difficult, had failed? The attack, which was deeply controversial at the time, shifted the course of Iraq’s nuclear-weapons program. It also set a lasting precedent for how Israel, and potentially other nuclear states, have managed would-be proliferators. Could Iraq have developed a nuclear weapon if the Israelis had not attacked?

The Debate

The Osirak reactor was a joint French-Iraqi project, agreed to in 1975. Construction of the reactor began in 1979, but by most accounts Iraq had not committed to the development of nuclear weapons in 1981. French engineers were present at the reactor, and it was subject to inspections from the IAEA. While Osirak was capable of contributing to a nuclear program, it was not, by most accounts, capable of producing a substantial amount of weapons-grade material on its own.

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Still, Israeli policymakers worried that Iraq, among the most industrially sophisticated Arab countries, could effectively use the reactor as part of a plan to develop nuclear weapons. This would offset the advantage that Israel had achieved with its own nuclear program. Moreover, Saddam’s Iraq had already demonstrated a troubling tendency to invade its neighbors. The Iranians, for what it’s worth, had also concluded that the Osirak reactor posed a major threat. They had launched their own attack against the reactor in 1980, and rumors continue to abound of shadowy collaboration between Israel and Iran regarding intelligence sharing.