Word: reactor
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...discussions about attacking the reactor were indeed being conducted at that time by Begin's Ministerial Defense Committee on Security Affairs. The meetings were in part spurred by an intelligence report that the Iraqis might be able to start manufacturing two or three small nuclear weapons within a year. Despite that, not all of the committee's Cabinet-level members were in favor of a pre-emptive raid. Among those opposed were Deputy Prime Minister Yigael Yadin, Interior Minister Yosef Burg and Education Minister Zevulun Hammer, who felt that the attack would damage relations with the U.S. But Begin prevailed...
...evacuated most of their 150 technicians from El-Tuwaitha, and the Israelis assumed that work on the reactor would be halted indefinitely. But after the war bogged down, the French returned. Another attack date was set for February, but it was canceled after Yadin reiterated his strong objections. A third date, in March, was scrubbed for undisclosed reasons. In May, the ministerial committee authorized Begin to choose his own date for the raid, but strong objections about timing were raised by Opposition Leader Shimon Peres, who had been briefed on the scheme, and the strike was once more postponed...
...word of the raid was leaked to Moshe Shahal, a Knesset opposition party leader. His source: former Defense Minister Ezer Weizman, who viewed the proposed strike as "adventurist." At roughly the same time, Begin's office received two additional intelligence reports that the Iraqis were prepared to activate the reactor (make it "hot" in technical jargon) as early as the first week in July. On June 5, Begin gave orders to launch the attack two days later. His day of decision was the 14th anniversary...
...Israeli Air Force had not been idle during these months of deliberation. A full-scale model of the entire reactor area had been built in a restricted part of the Sinai Desert, and a carefully selected group of the most talented Israeli pilots practiced their bombing runs until, in the words of one high-ranking officer, they knew "every tree and house" along their eventual attack route. Despite the scope of the rehearsals, the U.S. says that it did not detect the operation, either by satellite or other means. Originally, the plan called for the bombing to be carried...
...howling through the Sunday twilight at 400 m.p.h. For months the Israelis had studied the route up the Euphrates Valley, convinced that they could negotiate it without being detected by radar or ground observers. Fifty minutes after takeoff, the warplanes sighted their target, the distinctive cupola housing the nuclear reactor. The aircraft wheeled and climbed toward the setting sun?the classic maneuver prior to attack...