Posts Tagged ‘Saddam Hussein’

When Israel And Iran Teamed Up Against Saddam

Saturday, April 18th, 2026

The Islamic Republic of Iran is notorious for its pathological hatred of Israel. However, this hatred didn’t prevent the two countries from cooperating against a mutual enemy: Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.

  • “In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Israel actively collaborated with the Islamic Republic of Iran, and in fact described that country as its most valuable ally, even above the United States, which will undoubtedly shock some people watching this video. But of course, they both feared Iraq, an enemy to both of their nations, and particularly were worried about Saddam Hussein acquiring nuclear weapons.”
  • “The problem dated back to the 1960s, when Iraq began to establish a nuclear energy program for civilian use [“Civilian use.” Sure it was. -LP] and by the mid 1970s was looking to purchase a reactor.”
  • “Most countries wouldn’t touch such a deal with a barge pole. Except the French, who made a deal with Iraq in 1974 to75 to sell them an Osiris class research reactor plus 72 kg of 93% enriched uranium and of course provide the training for Iraqi personnel to run such a facility.”
  • “The deal would net the French $300 million at today’s prices about $1.7 billion.”
  • “Israel’s Mossad Intelligence Organization began immediate efforts to sabotage the program before all of the equipment and scientists were in place in Iraq. On the 6th of April 1979, Mossad agents damaged the Ozerak reactor while it was awaiting shipment from France.”
  • “Then the Mossad went further and assassinated Egyptian nuclear scientist Professor Yahya El Mashad, who would head the Iraqi nuclear program, killing him in his room at the Meridian Hotel in Paris.”
  • “However, Iraq did receive in July 1980 12kg of highly enriched uranium fuel for the reactor, the first of six phase deliveries from France.”
  • “Israel first tried diplomatic pressure via France and the United States, but the French government was unmoved.”
  • “The longer Israel waited, so the Israelis thought, the larger the chance that Saddam Hussein would begin building a nuclear bomb.”
  • “The Mossad also poisoned two Iraqi engineers involved with the project in Switzerland and France, respectively, and sent threatening letters to French personnel involved in the deal, frightening some of them off.”
  • “In 1979, the US allied Shah of Iran was deposed in the Islamic Revolution and a new government formed under Ayatollah Khomeini. He was no friend of Israel or the Jews, but Israel nonetheless urged Iran to bomb the Iraqi reactor.”
  • “Iran actually didn’t require much persuasion. The new hardline Islamic regime in Tehran hated Iraq and saw it as a greater threat than Israel.”
  • “The Iran-Iraq War broke out shortly afterwards when Saddam’s army invaded Iran. And it appeared that getting rid of any possible nuclear weapons that he might develop was in the interests of both Iran and Israel.”
  • Problem: The U.S. embargoed spare parts to Iran due to that pesky hostage crisis. “Incredibly, the Israelis secretly shipped US-made aircraft spares to Tehran so that the Iranian air force could put together a viable strike force.”
  • “The Ozerak reactor site was defended by a single battery of Soviet SA6 missiles, plus three batteries of French Roland 2 missiles and some Soviet 23 and 57 mm radar guided anti-aircraft guns.”
  • “Due to the state of the Iranian Air Force, its F-4 Phantom fighter bombers could only jam the SA6s and not the Rolands. So the pilots would have to fly very low and fast and depart equally quickly, requiring great skill. Israel and Syria also provided the Iranians with some up-to-date intelligence on the reactor site.”
  • “Operation Scorch Sword, the Iranian attack, commenced on the 30th of September, 1980 with four F4 Phantoms flying to the Iraqi border and being refueled by an Iranian Boeing 707 tanker escorted by two F-14 Tomcats. Each Phantom carried six Mark 82 general purpose bombs, two AI7 Sparrow air-to-air missiles, also had an integral M61A1 Vulcan 20mm cannon.”
  • “The Phantoms then raced into Iraq at very low level, then climbed to allow the Iraqi radars to briefly paint them in an effort to confuse the Iraqis as to the direction the Iranian aircraft were traveling and then drop low again and turn towards the reactor site. One pair would bomb the reactor. The other pair would attack its associated power station.”
  • “The pair approached the Tamuz reactor at low level, pulled up about 2 and 1/2 km from their target, and then released 12 bombs.”
  • “At the same time, the other two Phantoms, bombed the power station at Tammuz, knocking out electricity to Baghdad for 2 days. Two bombs hit the Tammuz One reactor, while others started a huge fire, destroyed all sorts of equipment, laboratories, and other support buildings. No shots were fired at the Iranian planes.”
  • “Damage to the reactor was listed by the Iraqis as ‘minor.'”
  • So time for the Israelis to take a whack. “The Israeli operation was code-named Opera, and had to wait until Israel received their brand-spanking-new F-16s from the U.S.
  • “Reconnaissance missions found a blind spot in Iraq’s radars on the border with Saudi Arabia, and it was decided that the Israelis would enter via this gap.”
  • “The Israeli attack force comprised eight F-16As, each armed with two unguided Mark 84 2,000lb delay action bombs. Cover was to be provided by a further flight of six F-15As.”
  • Random fact: “The attacking pilots included Ilan Ramon, who would later die aboard the space shuttle Colombia in 2003, where he was a payload specialist.”
  • “On the 7th of June 1981, the Israeli attack force departed, passing through Jordanian and Saudi airspace and when challenged, telling air traffic control over Jordan that they were Saudi patrol that had gone off course, and over Saudi Arabia that they were a Jordanian patrol that had likewise become lost.
  • “The F-16s climbed to 6,900 ft 12 mi from the reactor, then dived at 680 mph, releasing bombs at 3,600 ft. Eight out of 16 bombs hit the reactor containment dome. Iraqi anti-aircraft fire opened up, but the F-16s climbed away unharmed.”
  • “Though Saddam determined to rebuild the reactor with French assistance, the ongoing war with Iran and payment problems killed this off. And in 1991, during the first Gulf War, the US bombed the facility out of existence permanently.”

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    Posted in Military | 1 Comment »

    Iraq: It’s All George W. Bush’s Fault

    Thursday, June 12th, 2014

    (Note: This headline is only slightly factitious.)

    The problem with George W. Bush’s Middle East policy is that there’s no political gain there, no matter how great the price or resounding the achievement, that Obama can’t throw away through his manifestly gross incompetence. Al Qaeda in Iraq’s successor organization, the Sunni Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) “consolidated and extended their control over northern Iraq on Wednesday, seizing Tikrit, the hometown of Saddam Hussein, threatening the strategic oil refining town of Baiji and pushing south toward Baghdad, their ultimate target.”

    That’s the same ISIS that captured Mosul, where they seized $429 million worth of Iraqi dinars from the local bank, making them the richest terrorist army in the world.

    Remember when Obama declared that “al Qaeda is on the run”?

    And remember when Obama pulled out of Iraq and walked away without a status of forces agreement there?

    Now two battalions of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Quds forces have deployed to Iraq, ostensibly to support Maliki’s Shiite government. So now, in theory, we’re allied with the Mullahs in Iran in Iraq against the Isalmists we’re supporting in Syria against the Iran-aligned government of Bashar Assad.

    About the only good news out of the region is that the Kurds are holding their own. An independent Kurdistan would be far from the worst development in the region, and would probably freak out both Iran and Turkey enough to distract them from further mischief elsewhere.

    The current situation highlights the age-old truth that the Middle East is filled with people whose deepest desire appears to be to kill and gain power over members of rival clans/tribes/factions/confessions/etc. This has been true for pretty much all of recorded history save when a strong power (Ottoman, British, Baathist) is able to keep those tendencies in check through heavy policing, military occupation, or a brutal security state apparatus. The presence of our troops there gives the natives a distraction and a target, allowing them to temporarily stop killing each other in preference to killing us. The exceptions to this rule, such as multicultural Lebanon circa 1946-1974, have proven frustratingly ephemeral.

    Israel provided a temporary target of unifying hatred, but the Jewish state’s defensive measures have made it increasingly difficult to get close enough to any Jews to kill them, hence back to the old internecine pursuits.

    Bush43’s foreign policy in the Middle East and the decision to invade Iraq stems, in large measure, from Bush41’s decision not to let Schwartzkopf take Baghdad in The Gulf War. Whether doing so would have brought all on all our Iraqi troubles two decades earlier is debatable. There is much to say for toppling a totalitarian thug like Saddam, not least of which was liberating the children’s prison, where children as young as 5 were tortured to make their mothers talk. Perhaps the ideal strategy would have been to depose and execute Saddam and his top regime supporters in 1991, then immediately leave and let Iraqi factions kill each other rather than our troops. But I doubt anyone put forward that idea as a serious suggestion at the time.

    Bush43 ultimately succeeded in largely pacifying Iraq, but the cost was high and, as recent events proved, the gains were temporary. The problem with interventionist policy in the Middle East is that there is no gain safe from the feckless impulses of surrender and appeasement that dominate the Democratic Party’s thinking today. The Scoop Jackson wing of the Democratic Party is dead, and Obama and Kerry perfectly embody the combination of naivete, hubris, multilateralist, and hostility to the military that dominates today. They love signing treaties and “the peace process,” even though it’s all process and no peace.

    It turns out that Ron Paul may be right for the wrong reasons. Because no foreign policy gain in the Middle East is safe from Democratic incompetence, Republicans should not pursue any interventionist foreign policy there, especially in the name of impossible “stability”. No interventionist accomplishment there can endure long past the end of a Republican President’s term, because there is no gain safe from the likes of Kerry and Obama. And since there is no indication the nature of the Democratic Party will be changing any time soon, a military interventionist foreign policy there, no matter how well-intentioned, well-planned, and well-executed, must be doomed to ultimate failure.

    In hindsight, the liberation of Iraq turns out to be a tragic mistake, because Bush underestimated how decisively his hard-won gains could be undone by the incompetence of his successor.

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    Posted in Foreign Policy, Jihad, Military, Obama Scandals | 1 Comment »

    WMD Found in Iraq

    Sunday, October 24th, 2010

    According to the latest batch of Wikileak documents. In particular, coalition troops kept coming across numerous artillery shells filled with mustard gas.

    Remember the terms of Section 8 of UN resolution 687 that ended the first Gulf War:

    Iraq shall unconditionally accept the destruction, removal, or rendering harmless, under international supervision, of:

    (a) All chemical and biological weapons and all stocks of agents and all related subsystems and components and all research, development, support and manufacturing facilities

    Thus the instance of a single chemical weapon in Iraq violates the terms that ended the Gulf War, and thus the decision by George W. Bush to carry out the liberation of Iraq in 2003 was both legal and justifiable. (This is in addition to the other numerous instances of jus ad bellum cited by Bush in his speech on that reasons behind that decision.)

    Liberals, look at yourself in the nearest mirror and repeat after me: “George W. Bush was right and I was wrong. George W. Bush was right and I was wrong.”

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    Posted in Foreign Policy, Jihad | 4 Comments »