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. How israel and iran teamed up to crush iraq s nuclear bomb program by sebastien roblin now the famous israeli operation opera that destroyed the osirak reactor was still nine months away. The syrian nuclear.
Israel bombed the iraqi nuclear reactor at osirak in 1981. Israel has a history of targeting nuclear sites to prevent other regional powers from developing nuclear weapons. 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 a research site.
Once in charge hussein stepped up his efforts to make iraq a nuclear power to counteract israel s supposed nuclear capacity. Two weeks after the osirak attack israel admitted it had the capability of developing its own nuclear weapons. One of the pilots involved was ilan ramon who trained as israel s first astronaut but was killed in the columbia shuttle disaster in 2003.
Only then did iraq admit it had happened and express indignation. The attack codenamed operation opera surprised the iraqis and the rest of the world though for israel it had long been in planning. Invasion of iraq in 2003 had israel not destroyed iraq s nuclear reactor in 1981.
American and coalition forces may have faced a nuclear armed iraq during the persian gulf war in 1991 and again during the u s. In 1976 iraq purchased an osiris class nuclear reactor from france 6 7 while iraq and france maintained that the reactor named osirak by the french was intended for peaceful scientific. The attack was the first on a nuclear reactor and only the third on a nuclear facility in history.
At the onset of the war yehoshua saguy director of the israeli military intelligence directorate publicly urged the iranians to bomb the reactor. Iran attacked and damaged the site on 30 september 1980 with two f 4 phantoms shortly after the outbreak of the iran iraq war.
