Eight days into the Iran-Iraq War, Operation Scorch Sword commenced. At dawn on 30 September 1980, four Iranian F-4E Phantom jets refueled mid-air just before the Iran-Iraq border. After crossing into Iraq, the fighters climbed to a higher altitude so that their course was detectable by Iraqi radar. Moments later, two of the Phantoms peeled off, and dropped to a lower altitude to avoid radar detection. They were flying stealth to Tuwaitha, a city ten miles southeast of Baghdad, home to the Osirak nuclear reactor.
As the world debates the possibility of an Israeli air strike of Iranian nuclear facilities, many have sought to learn lessons from Israel’s 1981 attack on the Osirak reactor. As I thumbed through our documents on Israel’s attack (and boy do we have some good ones), I learned that Iran had bombed Iraq’s nuclear research facility first. And, in all probability, it was Iran’s aerial reconnaissance photographs, which the Islamic republic shared with Israel, that were crucial to the Israeli Air Force’s complete destruction of the reactor on 7 June 1981.
Can’t make this stuff up. Below is a page from the CIA’s 1 October 1980 National Intelligence Daily (NID) that reported the Iranian attack.
According to Tom Cooper and Farzad Bishop of Air Enthusiast, who have written by far the most informative (if unsourced) piece on the subject, Target: Saddam’s Reactor, eye witnesses reported that two bombs hit the dome of the reactor and bounced off. The water cooling facility was also damaged, as were the facilities for storing and treating liquid radioactive waste. Some publications (see the Christian Science Monitor, 22 October 1980) reported that the attack was conducted by Israel. The CIA NID refuted this at the time, and the Air Enthusiast article also factually debunks this claim. (more…)
