When Israel destroyed Iraq's nuclear reactor
Witness History
BBC
4.5 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 7 June 2021
⏱️ 10 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On 7 June 1981 Israeli fighter jets launched a surprise attack on the Osirak nuclear reactor located outside Baghdad, killing 11 people. The French-built reactor was still under construction and there was no leakage of nuclear material, but the bombing was widely condemned internationally. Israel argued that it had effectively slowed down Saddam Hussein's nuclear programme by ten years, while the Iraqis insisted that the reactor was being built for purely scientific research. Mike Lanchin has been speaking to Dr Fadhil Muslim al Janabi, a former consultant for Iraq's nuclear agency and one of the first people to see the damaged reactor site.
Producer in Baghdad: Mona Mahmoud
Picture: The Tammuz light-water nuclear materials testing reactor under construction in Al-Tuwaitha, just outside of Baghdad, 1979. (Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Choosing what to watch night after night the flicking through the endless |
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| 0:21.0 | And me, Natalie Cassidy, so your evenings can be a little less |
| 0:24.9 | searching and a lot more auction listen on BBC sounds Hello and welcome to the Witness History podcast on the BBC World Service, |
| 0:39.2 | first-hand accounts of events that have shaped our world. I'm Mike Lanchin. Today we're going back to June |
| 0:45.4 | 1981 when Israeli fighter planes launched a surprise attack on a French-built nuclear |
| 0:51.7 | reactor in Iraq. |
| 0:53.0 | It was the first ever air-strike against the nuclear facility. |
| 0:57.0 | The Israelis said today that their jets attacked and completely destroyed Iraq's nuclear reactor on Sunday. |
| 1:04.2 | Iraq has called for an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council |
| 1:08.0 | and an urgent meeting of the Arab League is to be held. |
| 1:10.2 | The Americans say they were not consulted in advance and they've joined the condemnation of the raid. |
| 1:15.7 | The attack on the unfinished nuclear reactor of Osirac, located 17 kilometers outside Baghdad, |
| 1:22.0 | was carried out in such secrecy that neither the Israelis nor the Iraqis |
| 1:26.8 | had recognized it publicly until the following day. |
| 1:38.1 | I didn't hear the attack. I was too far away. There weren't any phones and it wasn't announced on TV. That's Dr Fadil Muslim Al-Jernabi, who was a consultant to the Iraqi nuclear agency. |
| 1:45.6 | He was at home in the Iraqi capital on the evening of Sunday June 7, 1981. |
| 1:51.0 | The following day he turned up at work as usual. |
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