Israel this week will mark the 40th anniversary of one of the most daring military missions in its history: the elimination of the would-be nuclear reactor in Iraq. The operation stunned the world and went down in history as one of the most audacious Israeli Air Force raids ever performed and one that defeated all odds.
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Operation Opera was a surprise airstrike mounted by the eight IAF fighter jets on June 7, 1981. The jets dropped 16 bombs on their target, leveling Osirak, an unfinished Iraqi nuclear reactor located 17 kilometers (11 miles) southeast of Baghdad.
Ten Iraqi soldiers and one French civilian were reportedly killed in the airstrike which Israel called an act of self-defense, saying that the reactor had "less than a month to go" before "it might have become critical.
Operation Opera essentially outlined Israeli policy with respect to preventive strikes on enemy targets, and it added another dimension to its existing policy of deliberate ambiguity, as it related to the nuclear weapons capability of other states in the region.
The attack was preceded by a series of diplomatic efforts by Israel, which for five years had tried to prevent Iraq from realizing its nuclear ambitions. Israeli officials had tried in particular to influence the United States and France, which had supplied Iraq with the nuclear reactor, but to no avail.
While diplomatic efforts were underway, the defense establishment worked tirelessly to outline military options. It was believed that bombing the Iraqi reactor would delay Baghdad's nuclear project by several months, or at most by several years, making then-Military Intelligence Director Yehoshua Sagi, who opposed the strike, question whether the operational risk was justified, the reaction Israel would surely face in the international arena.
Seven veteran IAF pilots were selected for the mission, as well as one young pilot – Ilan Ramon, who would one day become the first Israeli astronaut, but for whom, at the time, it would be the first operational mission.
The pilots were only told of their targets after months of training, during which one of the gravest concerns was that of fueling.
Aerial refueling was not an option in those days, and the fuel what was then highly advanced F-16 fighter jets was barely enough to strike Iraq and make it back to Israel.
"We faced considerable operational challenges, one of which was Iraqi air defenses," former Military Intelligence Director Maj. Gen. (ret.) Amos Yadlin, one of the eight pilots to participate in the raid, told Israel Hayom.
"Iraq was at war with Iran at the time, and the Iranians had already tried to attack the reactor in January 1981 with phantom [jets], making the Iraqis realize that they had to protect the reactor. Also, our fuel reserves were very low, and if we got into a dogfight, we wouldn't have any fuel left to get home."
Yadlin recalled that the jets "flew at low altitudes over three enemy states – Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Iraq. The attack was very compact so that the smoke from the bombs dropped by [jets number] one and two wouldn't obstruct numbers seven and eight's view of the target.
"The eighth and most dangerous place [in the strike formation] was taken by Ilan Ramon, who at the time was single and didn't have any children. The entire strike lasted about a minute and a half," he said.
As for what was going through his mind during the operation, Yadlin said, "If anyone says that pilots are not afraid, he is not telling the truth. We flew for an hour and 43 minutes, far into a place where no Israeli plane had ever gone, to a country we are at war with. As soon as I felt the bomb drop and hit its target – that's when the pressure [levels] dropped.
"If there is a law by which anything that can go wrong, will go wrong – in this mission everything that could have gone wrong didn't. No one [on the Israeli side] was hurt and the reactor was destroyed. It's an amazing achievement," he concluded.
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