Raid on the Sun (8 page)

Israel would have to deal with Iraq alone. But what were its options? Iraq was one of the richest nations in the Persian Gulf, with a GNP of $18 billion—ten times the size of Israel. It had powerful allies, including the Soviet Union and the Arab Rejectionist Front, an organization of Arab nations, including Syria and Yemen, dedicated to the destruction of Israel. Iraq’s army boasted 190,000 men, 12 divisions, 2,200 tanks, and 450 attack planes.

Surprisingly, the two intelligence chiefs, the IDF’s General Saguy and Mossad’s Hofi, as well as Begin’s own Deputy Prime Minister Yadin, vehemently opposed any type of military raid. Such violation of a nation’s sovereignty was tantamount to an act of war, they argued. It was too risky and there were too many unknowns. And besides, who knew for sure whether Iraq was truly capable of building an atomic bomb? It required a sophisticated technological and educated infrastructure, which Iraq clearly did not possess. Eitan and Ivry, joined by Sharon, countered that Israel could not afford to wait and find out.

Hofi’s stubborn, mulish eyes clamped on Rabin.

“You run a much greater danger of alienating America than of destroying Iraq’s reactor,” he announced.

“What help will they be if he creates an atomic bomb?” Ivry countered.

Voices grew louder around the room. Though nothing compared to the Israeli Knesset, where parliamentarians routinely screamed at one another at the top of their lungs, hurling insults and threats, the meeting was nonetheless becoming tense and uncomfortable. These men had known and fought beside one another, literally in the trenches, for decades. But the critical nature of the “Arab nuclear question” and how to deal with it had profound and imponderable ramifications—and it cut to the bone of national survival.

The present government, it became immediately clear, was dangerously divided over how to handle Iraq’s nuclear threat. Indeed, Hofi found himself ruling a house divided at Mossad. Most of his department heads supported a raid. Since when, they observed, did Israel care what Europe thought of its policies? Where were their “friends” in ’67 and ’73? David Biran, the head of Tsomet, Mossad’s recruiting department, was already moving ahead with preparations for some kind of intervention by force at Osirak and had ordered the Paris station to find an Iraqi candidate working at France’s Sarcelles nuclear facility, which was overseeing the construction of the reactor, whom they could recruit . . . or compromise.

Shocking the cabinet, the usually hawkish, shoot-from-the-hip prime minister, his shiny bald head and steely black eyes flashing around the table, announced he would not approve
any
military operation unless he had 100 percent backing of the entire cabinet. Rabin’s election in 1974 had been partially the result of the continuing ideological temblors shaking Israeli politics ever since the trauma of the ’73 Yom Kippur War, when Israel, after fatally misreading Arab troop movements along its borders, found itself in danger of being overrun by Syrian forces during the first three days of fighting. Begin, the hard-line general and infamous Irgun head, had been elected to ensure that such a disaster never happened again. But the kind of raid the cabinet was now contemplating, the first ever on a nuclear reactor, was far too risky, the stakes way too high to go it alone. Begin would need all the political cover he could get.

He ordered the two military chiefs, Eitan and Ivry, to begin drawing up contingency plans. In the meantime, Mossad and military intelligence would ascertain when the reactor would go “hot.”

But Ivry still worried.

“If we are to wait,” he pronounced, cocking an eyebrow at Hofi, “we have to slow things down a bit.”

Begin agreed. They couldn’t just sit around and do nothing.

Though he opposed striking al-Tuwaitha, the crotchety Mossad chief was nothing if not a loyal soldier. Hofi smiled thinly at the group.

“Well, we may have one or two ideas.”

SUNDAY, JUNE 7, 1981
1455 HOURS: T-MINUS 1:06
ETZION AFB, ISRAELI-OCCUPIED SINAI PENINSULA

The thunderous roar of eight Pratt & Whitney jet engines firing up inside the cavernous underground hangar vibrated all the way through the crew chief’s safety earmuffs, seeming to make the foam-rubber-lined earphones jump right off his skull. The F-16 maintenance chief swore he could actually see the sound waves rolling out of the exhaust burners. He glanced up at the cockpit of No. 106. Through the glass canopy the pilot gave him a thumbs-up. He was ready to taxi up the ramp to the runway for takeoff position. Where the pilots were going, the warrant officer had no idea. This was a “black operation,” conducted in complete secrecy. The entire base had been locked down like a prison since Friday. All flight and support crews had been warned by security officers not to talk to anyone and to ask no questions.

Now it was T-minus 1:05 and counting. Takeoff was 1600. The maintenance chief could feel a knot in his stomach. Something big was happening. He ducked under the wing on the three o’clock side for final preflight inspection. He had already rechecked the plane’s parachute fittings and affirmed that all the safety pins were pulled so the ejection seats were armed and ready. The rocket beneath each seat would shoot the pilots several hundred feet into the air above the aircraft in case of bailout. All the pilot had to do was pull the ejection handle. Now, the crew chief looked for hydraulic leaks, fuel leaks, damage to the fuselage. He checked the tire pressure and that the two-thousand-pound MK-84 gravity bomb was secured in its release clip and that the safety pin was still in place. He scanned the external fuel tank, hung between the bomb and the fuselage. The tank held an extra 370 gallons of fuel. He had not seen many external fuel pods. Nearly all IAF combat missions and patrols, even during hostilities, occurred within or just across Israel’s borders. Such a long-distance strike was rare—maybe a first. The warrant officer and the other crewmen could not help but guess where the pilots were going. Most thought deep inside Syria—or maybe Libya. He thought it would be east.

He did a final visual of the Sidewinder missile mounted on the wingtip, looking for loose clips or unattached electrical wires that could cause the air-to-air heatseekers to malfunction—and perhaps lead to the death of the pilot. He repeated his inspection under the opposite wing, then gave an “all clear” sign to the pilot before ducking under the landing gear to pull out both chocks wedged beneath the tires. Unfettered, and with another deafening whine from its engine, the 106 Fighting Falcon inched forward, gradually gaining speed as it climbed the ramp out of its hidden nest to the tarmac outside. The crew chief walked beside the plane, blinking back the blinding rays of the summer sun, staring at the eastern sky.

CHAPTER 2

                                                                                                                                       
MISSION IMPOSSIBLE

First say to yourself what you would be,
then do what you have to do.

—
EPICTETUS

The drivers of the two cargo trucks bounding across the French countryside carrying the Mirage jet engines from the Dassault-Breguet plant for delivery to a warehouse in the tiny Mediterranean port town of La Seyne-sur-Mer barely noticed when a third nearly identical container truck pulled onto the highway behind them and joined their caravan along the route to the French Riviera. The convoy stopped outside the main gate of a heavily fenced compound while the guardhouse security officer checked the paperwork of the first driver.

It was April 6, 1979, and three guards were on duty this evening, one of them a new employee with impeccable credentials who had been hired just days before. They all worked for a private French security company contracted to protect the compound. The guards, more concerned with shipments going out than coming in, waved the trucks through, including the third truck, which was ferrying a large metal shipping container. This truck turned off from the other two and pulled up outside a huge storage bay. The bay gate had been unlocked earlier by the new guard. Climbing down from the cab, the driver momentarily surveyed the darkened compound, then moved to the back of the truck and unlatched the doors to the metal container. Six men, all dressed in street clothes, quickly dropped to the ground. Five of the men were
neviots
(Mossad break-in specialists trained in sabotage and bugging), the sixth an Israeli nuclear engineer.

Inside the bay, crated and marked for shipment to Iraq, were the finished cores to the Osirak nuclear reactor, arguably the most critical components of the reactor. Crated nearby were more reactor parts and a huge metal block designed to house atomic batteries. Alongside the Iraqi shipment was a device for loading nuclear fuel into a reactor, scheduled for shipment to a Belgian company, and a specially designed lid to a container to store radioactive materials, ordered by a West German firm.

As the Israeli nuclear engineer quickly pointed out the most damaging places in the cores to plant five plastic explosive charges, outside the compound gates a crowd had begun to form. Across the street from the guards, a strikingly attractive woman had been suddenly brushed by a dark late-model car as she crossed the street. Whether injured or not, she was decidedly not dumbstruck and immediately began shouting obscenities in French at the shaken driver, drawing the attention of passersby and the security guards, who left the gate and jogged toward the woman to see if she was hurt. As the guards crossed the street, a deafening explosion behind them shook the village like an earthquake, blowing out windows blocks away from the plant and engulfing the shipping warehouse in flames. By the time the gendarmes and fire trucks had raced to the compound, both the car and the woman had disappeared into the night.

The twisted nuclear-fuel loader destined for Belgium and the West German container lid were unsalvageable. Both of the Iraq reactor cores showed hairline fractures. Designed to withstand intense heat and radiation, the cores had been manufactured to exacting specifications. The slightest fissure could lead to a meltdown. French investigators estimated the damage at $23 million, U.S.

The French were curiously unapologetic. Dr. Khidhir Hamza and the Nuclear Research Center were informed that the cores would take two years to replace. They could be put online, but they would crack eventually. If Iraq wanted them “as is,” it would have to sign a waiver releasing the French from all responsibility. Ultimately, Iraq’s atomic energy officials, knowing the Great Uncle’s obsession with deadlines, decided to accept the cores the way they were, cracks and all. The French agreed to perform what repairs they could.

French officials were closemouthed about the incident, and a police blackout was imposed on the media. Meanwhile, the French began a “below the shadow line” investigation. Immediately suspect were Libya, the PLO, the Russians, the Israeli Mossad, and even their own French secret service, which had been known to have grave misgivings about the Paris-Baghdad treaty from the beginning. After the blast, an anonymous caller from an environmental organization identified as Le Groupe des Ecologistes Français, a group no one had ever heard of before—and would never hear of again—telephoned the French daily
Le Monde,
claiming it had bombed the plant at La Seyne-sur-Mer “to neutralize machines that threaten the future of human life.” A week earlier the near-meltdown at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, had sparked antinuke demonstrations around the world. The caller referred to this accident, saying the group had turned to action “to safeguard the French people and the human race from such nuclear horrors.”

French gendarmes dismissed the claim. For one thing, the explosives work had been too professional. And there was no history of the group. But the police had little else to point to, as there were few witnesses, no suspects, and vague motives. With few facts and French law enforcement refusing to comment further, the Paris media were left to speculate wildly about what had happened.
France Soir
maintained that “extreme leftists” had carried out the sabotage.
Le Matin
chose the Palestinians; the weekly
Le Point
laid it at the feet of the FBI. And, of course, everyone considered Israel and the Mossad. But where was the proof?

Back in Tel Aviv, Yitzhak Hofi smiled as he read the various media accounts, especially
Le Monde
’s exclusive report on the genesis of the mysterious, militant ecoterrorists, Le Groupe des Ecologistes Français. According to ex-Mossad officer Victor Ostrovsky, Hofi was especially fond of that article: after all, it was he who had personally made up the name of the “terrorist” group.

The sabotage at La Seyne-sur-Mer yielded an unexpected dividend for Israel. Media attention once again had focused the spotlight on France’s controversial nuclear partnership with Iraq. Why was France helping an arguably rogue nation like Iraq achieve nuclear capability? And what did Iraq, floating on a sea of oil, need with a nuclear reactor? To blunt the growing international grumbling, Chirac announced that France would supply Iraq with only a low-grade uranium not suitable for weapons use, so-called caramelized uranium. Instead of the enriched weapons-grade U235 uranium promised in the original deal, the caramelized uranium was less than 40 percent pure and, though radioactive enough to power a reactor, it was unsuitable for the production of plutonium.

In Iraq, the bombing sent a chill through the scientists working at the Nuclear Research Center. Unlike the French, Khidhir Hamza and his colleagues had no illusions about the identity of the saboteurs: everyone suspected immediately the hand of the Israelis. The notion that Mossad’s deadly eyes had been turned on them caused a great deal of anxiety. Who could say whether the scientists themselves would be the next target? In the meantime, work went on as before. The Seyne-sur-Mer explosion delayed the installation of the cores for several months, an annoyance to be sure. But it had failed to destroy them, and construction at Osirak remained more or less on schedule.

Hofi and Mossad still had work to do.

In July 1979, just months after the explosion at La Seyne-sur-Mer, Iraqi president al-Bakr suddenly—and surprisingly—announced his retirement. Saddam Hussein immediately accepted the presidency. He was supreme leader, president of the Revolutionary Council and the Ba’th Party, and head of the army for life. The new title seemed to fill Hussein with a renewed viciousness.

Soon after followed the infamous Night of the Long Knives. The story had started as only a rumor whispered among Baghdad’s party faithful until a videotape of the unbelievable event surfaced and circulated among the upper classes. Using the pretense of an attempted Shi’ite assassination of his longtime deputy Tariq Aziz, Saddam had ordered a special assembly, calling together hundreds of deputies, ministers, and members of his ruling Ba’th council. At the grand convocation, Hussein took the podium and announced that the government had been betrayed. As he spoke, security guards and agents of the Ba’th Party’s dreaded secret police, the Mukhabarat, moved to seal off all the doors in the room. Then, one by one, sixty deputies and ministers, mostly Shi’ite, were called by name to the podium to confess to the room their treason and then, by way of apology, to recite the Ba’th Party oath: “One Arab nation with a holy message. Unity, freedom, and socialism!” When the oath was finished, the bureaucrat, pale and shaking, was led out a side door to a patio, where he was shot to death on the spot. Soon bodies were piled high on the bloody terrazzo. To prove their loyalty, factotums and party hacks—some grandfathers in their sixties, shaking and physically ill—were forced to pull the trigger on their former friends. The scene was straight out of some Brueghelian vision of hell. On the videotape, which Saddam personally ordered to be recorded, the Great Uncle could be seen laughing as the frightened men were marched away to death or prison.

Cut off from normal people, sleeping in a different palace or bunker every night, always fearful of revenge by a survivor or a child of a murdered adversary, Hussein grew more paranoid and eccentric. To confuse enemies he used doubles, men who had undergone plastic surgery to look like him. On the rare occasion he went out to dinner—even at the exclusive private Hunting Club in Baghdad—Hussein’s security men would first storm the kitchen and then observe every step of the cooking process, checking for poisons. Obsessed with germs, like Howard Hughes and Hitler before him—Saddam allowed no one to touch him. If a caller forgot himself and tried to shake the Great Uncle’s hand, bodyguards would billy-club him to the ground before the outstretched hand could violate the Great Uncle. A guard stood duty outside his offices with a doctor’s penlight, checking noses and throats to ensure no one with a cold or the flu passed by.

Stories like these were making the scientists and engineers at Osirak increasingly paranoid themselves. But Saddam more or less left the nuclear scientists to their work. Then one day, in early December 1979, a caravan of black Mercedeses came racing down the road from the main gate at al-Tuwaitha and pulled up to the curb in front of Atomic Energy’s administrative offices. Men in black suits and armed with submachine guns emptied from the cars and quickly sealed off the building. German shepherd police dogs were led through the hallways, sniffing, straining at their leashes. It was obvious: the Great Uncle had come to visit.

Deputy director Abdul-Razzaq al-Hashimi watched nervously as security agents entered his offices and ordered him to round up his top scientists. He quickly obliged. The room soon filled with nuclear engineers, physicists, and directors, including eminent scientists Dr. Hussein al-Shahristani, Dr. Jaffar Dhia Jaffar, and Humam al-Ghafour. Khidhir Hamza had flown to New York days earlier to attend a United Nations nuclear energy conference, but he would hear the harrowing details when he returned.

Saddam Hussein, histrionically, strode into the room without preliminaries. Guards pulled the doors shut behind him.

“When are you going to deliver the plutonium?” he asked the assembled scientists straight out.

An awkward silence hung in the room.

“I
said
,” he repeated, “when are you going to deliver the plutonium?”

“Plutonium . . . for what?” AE’s director, al-Shahristani, finally replied.

Saddam looked at him, annoyed. “When will you deliver the plutonium for the
bomb
?”

“Bomb? We can’t make a bomb . . .” al-Shahristani almost stuttered. “Well, theoretically, we could, I suppose, if we had enough plutonium . . . but there are nuclear nonproliferation treaties . . .”

“Treaties are a matter for
us
to deal with,” Saddam cut him off. “You, as a scientist, should not be troubled by these things. You should be doing your job and not have these kinds of excuses.”

Hussein stared at the group of scientists, who all stared at the floor. Finally, he seemed to make up his mind about something, then turned and walked out the door.

The following day al-Shahristani was not at work. He was not seen again in Tammuz. In fact, as Hamza would learn later, he was jailed, first in Mukhabarat headquarters in Baghdad and then in Abu Ghraib prison outside the capital. Two days later Jaffar Jaffar was also picked up and jailed. When he returned from New York, Hamza was put temporarily in charge of the nuclear reactor program. Hamza had been let in on Hussein’s ultimate plans for the Nuclear Research Center years earlier in the front room of al-Mallah’s home, but by December 1979, few scientists working at Atomic Energy had any illusions about the real purpose of their work.

New equipment continued to arrive weekly. The Rome-based nuclear manufacturing firm SNIA Technit, following France’s lead, had sold Iraq a critical chemical reprocessing unit used to extract weapons-grade plutonium from spent uranium fuel rods. Iraq was meeting with West Germany and Brazil about importing uranium ore and purchasing more nuclear reactors. A report by AMAN, the intelligence branch of the IDF, stated that one prospective deal between Iraq and Brazil called for the South American country to build
nineteen
nuclear reactors for Saddam.