Israel attack iraq nuclear weapon plant

Operation Opera (Hebrew: אופרה‎‎),[1] also known as Operation Babylon,[2] was a surprise Israeli air strike carried out on 7 June 1981, which destroyed an Iraqi nuclear reactor under construction 17 kilometers (10.5 miles) southeast of Baghdad.[3][4][5] The operation came after Iran's unsuccessful Operation Scorch Sword operation had caused minor damage to the same nuclear facility the previous year, the damage having been subsequently repaired by French technicians. Operation Opera, and related Israeli government statements following it, established the Begin Doctrine, which explicitly stated the strike was not an anomaly, but instead “a precedent for every future government in Israel.” Israel's counter-proliferation preventive strike added another dimension to their existing policy of deliberate ambiguity, as it related to the nuclear capability of other states in the region.

Israel claims that the attack impeded Iraq's nuclear ambitions by at least ten years.[17] In an interview in 2005, Bill Clinton expressed support for the attack: "everybody talks about what the Israelis did at Osiraq, in 1981, which, I think, in retrospect, was a really good thing. You know, it kept Saddam from developing nuclear power."[90] Louis René Beres wrote in 1995 that "[h]ad it not been for the brilliant raid at Osiraq, Saddam's forces might have been equipped with atomic warheads in 1991.

The attack was strongly criticized around the world, including in the United States, and Israel was rebuked by the United Nations Security Council and General Assembly in two separate resolutions.[14][15] Media reactions were no less negative: "Israel's sneak attack ... was an act of inexcusable and short-sighted aggression", wrote the New York Times, while the Los Angeles Times called it "state-sponsored terrorism".[14] The destruction of Osirak has been cited as an example of a preventive strike in contemporary scholarship on international law.[16][17] The exact efficiency of the attack is debated by historians[18] - it took Iraq off the brink of nuclear capability but drove its weapons program underground and cemented Saddam's ambitions of acquiring nuclear weapons. Despite international opprobrium, Operation Opera would help to secure the successful liberation of Kuwait and diminished the risk of terrorist groups in the region obtaining nuclear weapons, though it also heightened preexisting tensions with Iraq, making a future confrontation between the two powers more likely.[19]