Two Minutes Over Baghdad

On 7th June 1981 a group of F-16 fighter-bombers from the Israeli Air Force bombed the newly completed French-built Iraqi nuclear reactor at Tuwaitha, south-east of Baghdad. The F-16s dived in low and dropped 2000lb iron bombs and 900lb HE bombs on the main reactor building destroying the reactor, yet leaving only one casualty. Up above six F-15 fighters flew "top cover" while on the border of Iraq CH-53 Air Rescue helicopters were ready to retrieve any pilots who were shot down. The Iraqi air defences around the reactor were formidable with SA-6 (Gainful), SA-2 and SA-3 anti-aircraft missiles and ZSU-57-2 and ZSU-23-4 radar guided anti-aircraft guns and MIG-21 and MIG-23MF fighter interceptors based at a nearby airfield. What was more remarkable was that the Israeli strike team had to fly over several Arab countries to reach Iraq and fly within range of Saudi and US AWACs planes which were fully capable of spotting them hundreds of miles to the north. Fully updated with new, formerly classifiedinformation, this work includes new photographs taken during the mission and from US spy satellites showing the damage to the reactor. For the first time the names of the pilots are revealed, one of them was Israel's first astronaut who was sadly killed in the Space Shuttle crash in February 2003. Media opinion, which was very hostile back in 1982, has over time come round to the idea that this was correct and timely action by Israel.

The late Amos Perlmutter was Professor of Political Science and Sociology at the American University, Washington. He lectured at the US Naval Academy and Air Force Academy, as well as the US Naval War College and held visiting professorships at Harvard University, the Free University of Berlin, the Brookings Institution, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the University of Hyderabad The late Michael I. Handel was Professor of Strategy at the US Naval War College, Rhode Island, 1990-2001. He was a joint founding editor of the journal Intelligence and National Security Uri Bar-Joseph received his PhD from Stanford University in 1990. At present he is a senior lecturer in the Division of International Relations at Haifa University. His fields of interest are national security, intelligence, and the Arab-Israeli conflict