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Israeli Pilots Recall How Iran Inadvertently Enabled Iraqi Reactor Raid

(Times of Israel) 38 years after the Israeli air attack in 1981 that destroyed Saddam Hussein's nuclear reactor at Osirak, surviving pilots recalled that the attack was enabled by the Islamic Revolution in Iran. When Israel first discovered in 1977 that Iraq was building a plutonium reactor that could be used to build nuclear weapons, the fighter jets at its disposal were not capable of flying over 1,000 miles into enemy territory and returning safely. But in 1979, the Islamic Revolution of Ayatollah Khomeini overthrew the Shah of Iran, leading the U.S. to cancel a deal to supply Iran with 75 top-line F-16 fighter jets. The Americans then offered them to Israel. "The fact that the jets came to us because of the Iranian revolution is one of the greatest ironies in history," said Col. (ret.) Ze'ev Raz, who led the raid.
2019-06-14 00:00:00
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