Операция "Опера",( Read more... ) The Israelis have bombed a French-built nuclear plant near Iraq's capital, Baghdad, saying they believed it was designed to make nuclear weapons to destroy Israel.
It is the world's first air strike against a nuclear plant.An undisclosed number of F-15 interceptors and F-16 fighter bombers destroyed the
Osirak reactor 18 miles south of Baghdad, on the orders of Prime Minister Menachem Begin.
The army command said all the Israeli planes returned safely.
The 70-megawatt uranium-powered reactor was near completion but had not been stocked with nuclear fuel so there was no danger of a leak, according to sources in the French atomic industry.
The Israeli Government explained its reasons for the attack in a statement saying: "The atomic bombs which that reactor was capable of producing whether from enriched uranium or from plutonium, would be of the Hiroshima size. Thus a mortal danger to the people of Israel progressively arose."
It acted now because it believed the reactor would be completed shortly - either at the beginning of July or the beginning of September 1981.
The Israelis criticised the French and Italians for supplying Iraq with nuclear materials and plegded to defend their territory at all costs.
The statement said: "We again call upon them to desist from this horrifying, inhuman deed. Under no circumstances will we allow an enemy to develop weapons of mass destruction against our people."
The attack took place on a Sunday, they said, to prevent harming the French workers at the site who would have taken the day off
There have been no reported casualties.
The Osirak reactor is part of a complex that includes a second, smaller reactor - also French-built - and a Soviet-made test reactor already in use.
Iraq denies the reactor was destined to produce nuclear weapons.
Спецаилисты МАГАТЭ заявляли так же, что разбомбленый израильятами реактор не был подходящим для того чтобы получать на его основе обогагенные уран  или плутоний, чтоб делать бомбы. Политические историки  США отметили, что удары по реактору-настроили Ирак на милитаризацию и подтолкнули его ядерные исследования, потому что иракцы поняли, что это то, что им нужно. Тем более что спустя пару недель Израиль заявил что у него есть ЯО.

Richard K. Betts wrote that "there is no evidence that Israel's destruction of Osirak delayed Iraq's nuclear weapons program. The attack may actually have accelerated it."^[104] Dan Reiter has repeatedly said^[105][106] that the attack was a dangerous failure: the bombed reactor had nothing to do with weapons research, while "the attack may have actually increased Saddam's commitment to acquiring weapons."^[106] In 2011, and basing herself on new Iraqi sources, Malfrid Braut-Hegghammer said that the attack: "...triggered a covert nuclear weapons program that did not previously exist ... a decade later Iraq stood on the threshold of a nuclear weapons capability. This case suggests that preventive attacks can increase the long-term proliferation risk posed by the targeted state."^[107] Elsewhere, she wrote:
"The destruction of the Osiraq reactor did not delay the development of a nuclear weapons option because it [the reactor] was never intended to be part of such an effort. The French-supplied facility was subject to rigorous safeguards and designed to ensure that Iraq would not be able to produce weapons-grade plutonium. An examination of the reactor by Harvard physicist Richard Wilson after the attack concluded that the facility was not suited for production of weapons-grade plutonium. As a result, the attack did not reduce the risk that Iraq would develop nuclear weapons. On the contrary, it brought about a far more determined and focused effort to acquire nuclear weapons.^[108]

David Brown, U.S. Mission to the International Atomic Energy Agency, 1978-1981
BROWN: France had sold the reactor to Iraq. Iraq was a party to the Non-proliferation Treaty and the [International Atomic Energy] Agency had a safeguards agreement with Iraq that covered the reactor, which at that point was soon to become operational.

"Разведданные" Израиля, про то, что уже к сентябрю 1981 у Ирака будет "материал для бомбы", и тот ее обязательно сделает чтоб сбросить на Израиль, таким образом, оказались чем? Фиговым листиком для прикрытия своей агрессии на другую страну?
На фоне этого удара ООН призвало к санкциям, США отстояли Израиль, но вынуждены было на нескоторее время остановить поставки военных самолетов, которые уже были готовы  к отправке (ведь этот тип самолетов использовали для бомбежки):
Thomas Miller, Political/Military Officer, Israeli-Palestinian Affairs, 1981-1983
MILLER: Reagan was genuinely shocked that the Israelis would do this and not tell us. I’m not so sure he was shocked that they would do it, but he just expected from such close friends to be told. And when we weren’t told, what he did was he said, “Well, we have to do something.” We held up the F-16s for three weeks, and the American Jewish lobby mounted such a campaign against it that we couldn’t do it. The Israelis mobilized all their forces in this country and basically Reagan had to lift the embargo three weeks later.
 С тех пор США еще несколько раз было задействовано для решения вопросов безопасности Израиля.
Сейчас США "привлекаются" в очередной раз.