Agreed he had no nukes but a massive stockpile of CW, but the argument from Camera (and he is not the first to make it) is that had Osirak not been destroyed, then Saddam would have had "nukes" in 1991. That's just not credible.Originally Posted by Hollis
What's wrong with you?
I'm spending an hour to understand what was wrong with your statement and why it was mistaken. Then I provide you an answer from the French more reliable authorities:
http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums...=1#post6067629
Just to read you writing again that my statement was not reliable!
What do you know about this reactor? Do you believe the IAF would have risked the life of a single pilot if it wasn't dangerous?
Very interesting information Camera.
Thank you, sir.
Thank you. You're welcomed.
This is one of my sources:
Journal of Strategic Security
Operation Opera: an Ambiguous Success
Joshua Kirschenbaum
http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/cgi/vi...81&context=jss
There were two possible ways that Osirak could contribute to the Iraqi quest for fissionable material: uranium diversion or plutonium separation. The reactor ran on highly-enriched uranium (HEU) fuel (approximately 93 percent uranium 235), which was already of a weapons-grade purity, and the Iraqis may have hoped to utilize it to construct a weapon. The risk of HEU fuel diversion was not a major concern, as the French required the Iraqis to account fully for each quarterly shipment of spent fuel before they would release the next fuel shipment. And each twelve kilogram (kg) shipment would not provide the critical mass of uranium necessary to set off a nuclear explosion in a bomb.The total quantity of plutonium that Osirak could have produced depended on the power of the reactor (Israel believed that it could be expanded from 40 to 70 MW); the capacity of the cooling system; the amount of natural uranium that could be irradiated by the neutron flux aimed at the fuel in the core; and the arrangement of the targets. Iraq's plutonium separation capacity was shrouded in mystery. Richard Betts even concluded that the Iraqis lacked a separation capability at the time of the strike. He argued that "the reprocessing plant, rather than the reactor, would have been the appropriate target," for without separation facilities the radioactive material would have been useless
Don't jump the gun. I replied in order. First to Hollis and then to you (3 minutes after you posted this).
I don't remember much about that reactor that was taken out, so you could be 100% on it capabilities. There is also dirty bomb technology too. Some people think that will be first nuclear strike against a western power. Like other forms of state sponsor terrorism there is plausible deniability, there is a better warning system for strategic nukes VS dirty bombs, tracing the source take time if that is possible, etc,
This is exactly the problem with the internet. Often one can find absolutely any possible theory someone developed. And in this case the theory developed with wrong data. Once someone post on a site wrong data it would spread to numerous sites.
The links I gave you point to original sources. President Mitterand decided to not to rebuild Osirak for good reasons.
Sorry, I was maybe quick to react.
Holis, the point with Osirak is exactly the one I pointed to.
Osirak was a copy of the French reactor "Osiris", built in 1966. Osiris served to produce Plutonium.
Thanks. I guess I need to refresh my memory on that incident.
I didn't use a random unqualified site, and it certainly does not present just a single point of view. I'm not sure if you read the article yet, but please do and let me know what you think about the possibility of the Iraqis using plutonium separation at Orisak (which was monitored by the French and IAEA).
I did not read it yet but I'll do.
I'm not a nuclear scientist so with time passing, I forgot the technical aspects. But this incident reminded me what was the point.
France argued she did not sell to Irak a Plutonium separation facility. But the Mossad discovered, Irak was covertly provided with such facility by an Italian company.
All Irak had to do to produce Plutonium was to put natural Uranium between the rods of fuel and to expose it to the neutrons irradiation between two IAEA inspections.
Last edited by Camera; 03-06-2012 at 09:00 PM.
It's not surprising, because at the time, in 1981, the importance of the destruction of Osirak was misunderstood in the US, and Reagan's administration sanctioned Israel for this attack. (While, paradoxically, France was relieved.) Only later, in 1991, the US administration recognized the clear-view Israel had.
Following destruction of the reactor, the New York Times charged Israel with embracing a “code of terror” and claimed the raid was “inexcusable and short-sighted aggression”; the State Department spoke of a “reassessment” of relations with Israel;14
(…)
However, after the 1991 Gulf War, then-U.S. Secretary of Defense Di ck Cheney belatedly thanked Israel for destroying Iraq’s Osirak reactor,16 noting in a talk before the Center for Security Policy – a pro-Israel advocacy group – that the action, renounced at the time, had been central to the security of the United States:
“Let me … thank my good friend David Ivry [Commander of the Israel Air Force in 1981] for the action Israel took in 1981 with respect to the [Osirak] reactor.... There were many times during the course of the buildup in the Gulf and the subsequent conflict that I gave thanks for the bold and dramatic action that had been taken [by Israel] some ten years before.”
http://www.mythsandfacts.com/NOQ_Onl...tesisrael1.htm
Does it not highlight how gullable a good amount of folk were ... when they preferred to believe the Hype than actually reading between the lines that he was all talk ..
?? a guy points a pistol to your head. He says he is going to blow you head off. What do you do? Do you say to yourself, he is bluffing, the gun is not real, it is empty? When you hind sight someone, you need to go back and review history as the time develops. It isn't a matter of being gullible, 5,000 Kurds already proved Saddam would use WMD, his brutality was well noted for what his troops did to Kuwaitis, and for the know brutality in Iraq.
It is always easier and a person feels much smarter when they can call the play after it has been made as to what would have worked.
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