Free Republic

WITH a controversial Israeli attack in the news, I have thought back to another controversial Israeli attack, one that took place 29 years ago today: the strike on the Osirak nuclear reactor under construction in Iraq. The daring, risky bombing dealt a fatal blow to Saddam Hussein’s pursuit of a nuclear weapon. I was then President Ronald Reagan’s national security adviser, after having been his chief foreign policy adviser for several years. Sunday afternoon, I was on my back porch in Arlington, Va., wading through...my perpetually mounting paperwork. My progress was interrupted..the duty officer was requesting that I go to...

Jeb adviser James Baker to keynote J Street conference Leading talk show host and best-selling author Mark Levin assailed Jeb Bush last night over the revelation that one of his top foreign policy advisers, James Baker, will keynote an anti-Israel conference this weekend. The annual conference of the activist group J Street features an array of anti-Israel speakers, including proponents of the Boycott, Sanctions, and Divest (BDS) movement, which seeks Israel’s destruction, and advocates for the terrorist group Hamas. Jeb Bush’s selection of Baker as a foreign policy adviser has sparked concern among conservatives and in the Jewish and pro-Israel...

As the civil war in Syria enters its third year, there is much discussion of the regimeÂ’s chemical weapons and whether SyriaÂ’s Bashar al-Assad will unleash them against Syrian rebels, or whether a power vacuum after AssadÂ’s fall might make those horrific tools available to the highest bidder. The conversation centers on SyriaÂ’s chemical weaponry, not on something vastly more serious: its nuclear weaponry. It well might have. This is the inside story of why it does not. Relations between the United States and Israel had grown rocky after IsraelÂ’s incursion into Lebanon in 2006, for Secretary of State Condoleezza...

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) told a gathering of anti-war activists in Los Angeles on March 12 that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was misleading the public about Israel’s willingness to confront Iran alone, and that he had privately assured President Barack Obama that Israel would not go to war without U.S. backing. The week before, Netanyahu had used a visit to Washington to convey the message that Israel was prepared to act alone if necessary. That message was necessary, given the Obama administration's record of wavering on Iran, and its public attempts to dissuade Israel

•The Iranians learned a great deal from the destruction of Iraq's Osirak reactor by the Israel Air Force in 1981. The Osirak reactor was the key element in the Iraqi nuclear program: a single target which, when it was destroyed, set that program back very substantially. The Iranians saw this and they dispersed their nuclear program. Much of it is deep underground. There is no single target which, if destroyed, would substantially set back the Iranian nuclear program •When I came to Washington as Israel's ambassador in 1982, the atmosphere was one of hostility and there was talk of imposing...

When it was launched last December, Israel's invasion of the Gaza Strip looked to most people in Washington to be risky, counterproductive and doomed to futility. 'snip' But today, Operation Cast Lead, as the three-week operation is known in Israel, is generally regarded by the country's military and political elite as a success. The reasons for that are worth examining now that a new and even more hawkish Israeli government is weighing whether to flout Washington's prevailing opposition to a military attack on Iran. Israel's satisfaction starts with a simple set of facts. Between April 2001 and the end of...

Last month's strike by Israel on a Syrian facility didn't just resemble their strike on Osirak in 1981 in the nuclear sense. According to ABC News, the American response also struck a familiar chord, with the Bush administration attempting to hold Israel back from its strike -- and offering some very weak tea as an alternative (via Power Line): The September Israeli airstrike on a suspected nuclear site in Syria had been in the works for months, ABC News has learned, and was delayed only at the strong urging of the United States. In early July the Israelis presented the...

Several foreign embassies in Teheran are updating their emergency evacuation plans should a Western or Israeli attack on Iran occur. According to foreign sources, foreign diplomats believe a possible attack would take place before the end of 2007. By that time, Iran might have enough enriched uranium to cause a humanitarian and environmental catastrophe from radioactive fallout should its nuclear facilities be damaged or destroyed in an attack. Embassies in all countries generally have evacuation plans for their staff, but foreign sources describe the general atmosphere in Iran as one of heightened preparedness. Recently, several diplomatic missions based in Teheran...

Saddam wanted nukes -and - no matter what the world did,went back time, and time again in an effort to obtain them. This is a brief history, with links to some material you may have never seen before.

Israel And Freedom For Jonathan Pollard By Caroline Glick The Jerusalem Post - With INA Publisher's Note Below Jerusalem ---- April 28......Jonathan Pollard is one of the most polarizing figures of our times. Pollard, a former intelligence analyst in US naval intelligence, has now served 20 years of a life imprisonment sentence following his conviction for transferring classified US intelligence materials relating to Arab ballistic missile and nonconventional weapons programs to Israel from May 1984 until his arrest in November 1985. For his contribution to Israel's security and for his long suffering in prison, Israel considers Pollard a national hero....

On 7 June 1981, Israeli pilots flying F-16s, escorted by F-15s, bombed Iraq’s nuclear reactor at Osirak, near Baghdad. Though almost universally condemned at the time, for the most part the world later realized that it owed these pilots a great debt of gratitude, for they prevented Saddam Hussein from obtaining nuclear arms. Had Israel not destroyed that reactor, the course of history could have been far different. Kuwait would probably now be a province of Iraq and Saddam Hussein might also be the most powerful man in the Middle East, instead of a prisoner. Of course, the Israelis were...

Iraq built the Osirak nuclear facility near Baghdad with French assistance. When intelligence confirmed Iraq's intention of producing weapons there, the Israeli government decided to attack. However, the raid would have to occur before the reactor went “hot” so as not to endanger the surrounding community. Every detail of the mission was planned meticulously. The target was distant: 1,100 km from Israel. Preparations included building target mockups and flying full scale dress­rehearsal missions. The aircrews were selected from the cream of the Israel Air Force's (IAF) fighter corps. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Chief­of­Staff, Lt. Gen. Rafael (Raful) Eitan, briefed...

Israeli military leaders are considering an assault operation to destroy Iran's suspected nuclear weapons program, a report said Friday. Israel's chief of staff, alarmed by the failure of the international community to move against Iran, has warned that Israel would consider unilateral action to stop the "nightmare scenario" of Teheran's development of nuclear weapons. Earlier, Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom demanded that the international community stop the program, WorldTribune.com reported. Israel's Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Moshe Ya'alon took the rhetoric up a notch. "At the moment there is continuing international diplomatic activity to deal with this threat, and it...

WASHINGTON - Tony Blair is spending the weekend with President Bush at Camp David, arguing that the United States ought to return to the United Nations for a second anti-Iraq resolution. Blair's views are being repeated and amplified by other U.S. allies, by Democratic politicians in the U.S., and of course by many journalists. But Blair's views raise this other question: Why is two the magic number? Why not three? Or five? Or 28? On Nov. 8, the UN Security Council voted unanimously in favour of Resolution 1441, which demanded that Iraq readmit arms inspectors into its territory. That resolution...

PARIS--Georges Amsel is a prominent French researcher in atomic physics. As emeritus research director at France's Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and adviser on proliferation issues to former French President Francois Mitterrand, Amsel was part of a small group of scientists that revealed the extent and risks of France-Iraq nuclear cooperation in the 1970s and 1980s. In an interview with The Yomiuri Shimbun, Amsel said the new round of U.N. inspections will be crucial to ending the Iraqi crisis and will directly impact the way the North Korean nuclear issue is resolved. The Yomiuri Shimbun: How can U.N. inspections...