Customer Reviews

Raid on the Sun: Inside Israel's Secret Campaign that Denied Saddam the Bomb

5 star:		(33)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

When I saw Rodger Claire's Raid On The Sun I was excited to read it. As an F-16 pilot since the 80s, the raid on the Iraqi nuke plant had long been a subject of legend in the F-16 community and I was eager to get the real story and Mr. Claire had access to the pilots and senior leaders to get all the facts strait. It was a good read, and any fan of recent military history will enjoy it. I enjoyed getting filled in on the many details surrounding the establishment of Iraq's nuclear program, the planning involved in the raid, and of course the actual play-by-play of the mission itself.

However, I can't give it a high rating because of problems I had with Mr. Claire's details involving the F-16, which I obviously paid close attention to, and which were so often just plain wrong. They were all minor and wouldn't make a difference to the average reader, but to me they cast a shadow on the rest of the book. Things like "threw on the afterburners" (there's only one) the "thrusters" (nozzle?) hearing sounds of AAA and radio chatter of the gunners on the ground in their cockpit video recorders (what?!) saying the F-16 canopy is glass (it's plastic) "shoved the stick into afterburner" (the afterburner is controlled with the throttle) the reasons for flying in tactical formation (completely wrong), saying the HUD was newly-invented for the F-16 (not), American F-16s used "Stingers" (a surface to air missile) and so much more.... I kept thinking, if he can't get this easy stuff right, what about the important details? Why didn't the author have an actual F-16 pilot proofread his work before publication? Goodness knows there are enough of us out there and most would probably have done it for free! He also could have covered more of the political issues and other surrounding issues more in depth and in my opinion "over-dramatized" a lot of the fighter pilot stuff (a standard ailment of non-aviators writing about fighter pilots) although the mission itself was covered well.

So, if you aren't bothered by all this, read the book. You will probably enjoy it.

The precision of this operation's execution and the Israeli government's seemingly cavalier attitude in ordering such a strike have long interested me. Additionally, I'm a sucker for books showing how a seemingly flawless event was actually composed of missteps and near catastrophes which were overcome with hard work and strong leadership. Given all these qualities, it's no surprise that I had high hopes for Raid On The Sun. Fortunately, I was glad to find that the book met the expectations I had set for it.

Claire does an excellent job of laying out the reasons why the Israelis felt the need to perform this mission, the physical and tactical issues which made this attack almost impossible, the struggles to successfully complete it, and the operation's political ramifications. My only complaint is that the various elements don't get explored in more depth than what is presented. For instance, I would have preferred to have found out more about the reasons why some high ranking members of the Israeli military opposed the operation. While it didn't go into the all the depth I would have liked, Claire details the mission in an easy to read manner that more than adequately conveys its magnitude.

Given the current situation in Iraq, Raid On The Sun seems to be an exceptionally relevant book. But, regardless of whether or not one sees in this story an analogy with the current situation, Raid On The Sun is worth reading because it gives appropriate recognition to an extraordinarily dangerous military action.

Wow! This exciting little book reads like a Tom Clancy technothriller, but it's the true story of the 1981 Israeli raid that is all that stopped Saddam Hussein from acquiring nuclear weapons. Surrounded by enemies, tiny Israel has always had to be tough and resourceful to survive. When the Begin government learned that Saddam was building a reactor to enrich uranium to build atomic bombs, they tried diplomacy to convince France to stop providing the needed components. But when that failed, they fell back on their own resourcefulness, ingenuity, resolve and courage, and sent eight F-16 fighters on an astounding mission to destroy the reactor.

Rodger Claire interviewed all of the surviving planners and pilots, including Ilan Ramon, the youngest of the pilots, who became Israel's first astronaut and who died in the Columbia tragedy. In 250 pages, we get the exciting action story, and the thoughts and emotions of the participants as they meticulously planned and executed this extraordinarily dangerous mission. We also get some background on France's 30-year partnership with Saddam, and a photo of Jacques Chirac and Saddam grinning at each other in Baghdad in 1974, that speaks volumes to today's world.

Claire has a fine facility with language, making the book delightfully readable, and he weaves a gripping story that I stayed up until 2 AM to finish. There are occasional minor technical inaccuracies, that readers with detailed knowledge of military aircraft will notice, but they don't detract from this wonderful book.

Raid On The Sun is a very well written book, literally a "page turner". I couldn't put it down.

I can't add anything others have already said here, but to the positive reviewer who nevertheless wished more dirt on France and Jacques Chirac, I would want to know more too. But perhaps much more would detract from the action that pushes the narrative of this book. All the details on Chirac might be better placed in a prosecutor's criminal complaint.

The first part of this book, the cloak and dagger material featuring the Mossad, is drawn from Victor Ostrovsky's _By Way Of Deception_ and reportage by Seymour Hersh. These sources have generated considerable skepticism and controversy in the past, so reader beware.

The second part, focusing on the actual mission, is better. Rodger Claire was granted access to the mission pilots themselves, and their stories are first rate. They were superbly trained, highly motivated, and fiercely competitive. While cross-training on the F-16 in the United States, they impressed the USAF trainers with their incisive technical questions. At the time of this mission they were possibly the best fighter pilots in the world.

This section of the book answers a lot of mysteries, such as how the mission succeeded on a single tank of fuel per plane, how they avoided enemy interception, and why one of them missed the target. Also valuable is material from an interview with an Iraqi nuclear scientist, showing French perfidy in selling Saddam the reactor and uranium in the first place, and his eye-witness account of the Falcons swooping in to bomb his place of work. Thankfully for him, he was gettin his car fixed.

There are a number of annoying factual errors; for instance, Israel did not have F-4 Phantoms during the 1967 war, nor was the F-16 a U.S. Navy aircraft. There are also some surprises. Most of us know that mission pilot Ilan Ramon died in the Columbia disaster, but it's interesting to learn that another pilot, Iftach Spector, led the mistaken attack on the USS Liberty during the 1967 war.

Given the caveats about the first part of the book, I recommend it heartily. These brave pilots and their audacious mission bought the region a precious few more years to deal with Saddam. A bulls-eye!

I was very impressed with this book. I thought it did an excellent job of covering all of the action (what Isreal was doing, what France was doing, what Iraq was doing, etc.).

The book itself is very enjoyable and it moves very fast.

My greater surprise is that this bombing hasn't been hashed about in the news (given the daily drone about the Iraq war). This raid, over 20 years ago, had an immense impact on what the entire world faces today. Had Isreal not taken this action, the world would be a very different place. The war against Iraq would have been far worse (possibly involving nuclear weapons). Jacques Chirack can kiss my . . . he would sell any arab country a nuclear reactor today, if the price was right (emphasis on the fact that arab countries don't need nuclear reactors).

I was surprised the author didn't politicize the issue. He made casual reference to world leaders expressing the above point, but that was the extent of it. In my opinion, a saparate book can be written about the political implications of this bombing (20 years after the fact).

I picked this up having tried to find something to read that was substantive, historical but that was not too dry and long (many pages). I read this quickly one weekend, was a page turner. Seems very relevant today given what some rogue nations are planning these days.

Roger Claire fills a page or two of the book with the names and position of PM Menachem Begin's cabinet and how they voted for the mission before the actual book begins. I immediately wondered why not all members of Begin's (mostly hawkish) cabinet were for the raid at the beginning; I wondered why Yigael Yadin was against it at first. The brief explanation given was that some Israeli's feared that the international response would be that Israel acted as an aggressor, that it would be misread as an act of war, that it might have repercussions, etc., which seems to be a concern that really never disappears in Eretz Israel. However, the Israeli's dropped 28,000 pounds of bombs on the facility in such a way that loss of life was minimal and their true mission of disabling the plant for many years to come was accomplished. I thought it was interesting that their flight instructor was the only one whose bombs missed their target. He was the oldest member and a veteran of the six day war of 1967 who accidently bombed a U.S. surveillance naval ship off the Israeli coast during the war.

Me, I'm decidedly zionist, but sympathetic to calls for peace as long as it is reasonable and as long as lawlessness will not result and reign supreme as an outcome of the "peace process". But of course, Israel was in the international doghouse for a time after that and briefly after this raid. I don't think the Israeli's should have been seen as the aggressor in eitherof these instances. I laughed when I read Ariel Sharon's argument in the Knesset before the 8 F16 planes flew off to Osirak; he posed two scenarios to everyone: "If I were faced with the choice of being alive and unpopular, or dead and popular, I'd rather be alive and unpopular"! Me too! However, was the situation so dire then, was Saddam's facility nearly hot, or could it have waited? Or if they had waited any longer, would it have been harder to disable his program, would more lives been lost? Don't know the answer to those questions, however, Saddam had used weapons on his own people, killing scores of people, but I'm sure glad that reactor was rendered useless. And will be just as glad when other rogue nations' weapons programs are similarly rendered.

I thought Roger Claire's account was focussed and supplied just enough details about world events before, during, and after the mission that one could understand what all was going on at the time. The focus was mostly on the pilots, their training, their experience in these sophisticated glass coffins (F16s), their success with loss of life nil for the 8 men, one of whom perished in the space shuttle Columbia disaster some years ago. Was exciting reading, perhaps miraculous in that the planes' oil lasted those 8 hours or so it took to go to Iraq and back. The Israelis did their homework and knew these planes' specs upside down and sideways. What do I know about airplanes? If some details Claire gives about the F16s are wrong, maybe he should come out with a new edition or add a note of correction for future ones.

WHO ARE THESE that fly as a cloud, and as the doves to their windows? Isaiah 60:8

After a somewhat slow start, this book on Israel's 1981 raid on Iraq's nuclear reactor near Baghdad rapidly picks up speed, and the last hundred pages fly, as it were. Claire begins by setting the stage for the bombing of the Osirak reactor, and he is mostly successful. This is the only part of the book that drags, particularly a chapter on Saddam Hussein's biography, which I thought was unnecessary. In place of that section, I would have liked to have seen a chapter on the cabinet debate on whether to approve the raid; most officials supported it, but several key figures did not, and it would have been interesting to see their opposition fleshed out more.

Once Saddam's background is covered, we get a glimpse of Mossad's shadowy activities to delay Osirak's going online--such as blowing up core elements in France and assassinating Iraqi scientists, also in France. From there, the pace accelerates, and we see the Israeli pilots training in F-16s in the US. We feel the tension build as the raid is scheduled then cancelled, scheduled again and postponed, and finally and firmly set to take place on June 7, 1981. The mission to al-Tuwaitha, just south of Baghdad, is one of the most gripping narratives I've read in a while.

One complaint, though: the last two chapters were clumsily edited and proofread. Some mistakes are small, such as saying July when June is meant. Others are more glaring, like calling the National Security Council the National Security Administration (two very distinct entities) or mentioning that Sen. Lindsey Graham attended a party for David Ivry in summer 2001 when Graham was not a senator until January 2003.

Nevertheless, this is an amazing story. Eight pilots in, eight out, and the reactor was destroyed. The bombing has been mentioned often this past year, with the tragic death of Ilan Ramon (the eighth pilot in the raid) in the Columbia disaster and the pre-emptive war against Iraq. The book is both timely and riveting.

I enjoyed this book, although it seemed that the author was trying to boost the page count by including extraneous details. The writing wouldn't pass muster either in a serious newspaper or in a writing class.

The part that bothered me the most was the lack of proofreading. For example, there's a description of the liftoff of the fully loaded fighters which talks about passing the 5000 meter mark on the runway. Even B-52 bombers don't require 5000 meters, much less fighter planes. [Diego Garcia, the US military base in the Indian Ocean has 2.25 mile runways for B-52s, which is only about 3.6km or 3600 meters.] As another example, there are several references to Ammunition Hill in Jerusalem (Givat Hatachmoshet) which is first mistransliterated as Givat Hatachmoshem and then mistranslated (although I can't recall the translation).

It's a fun read, but it would be better at half the length and twice the proofreading.

The good - A great story of politics, planning and airmanship. One can wonder where we would have been in 1991 had the raid not occurred. Claire does a good job of providing the background for the raid. Remarkably similar to what is happening today in Iran and North Korea.

The bad - Unforgivably poor editing, a little overdose of hero worship and a lot of technical stuff that appears questionable, as others have noted. Sadly most of these problems could have been eliminated through a review by a couple of individuals with knowledge of nuclear engineering and tactical flying. The dialogue between the pilots and their leaders seems a little overdone. It seems illogical that if the pilots are truly fuel critical as they came off the target that a few pages later they would be Mach 1+ across the desert given the rate at which an F-16 converts fuel into sound at sonic speeds. Perhaps there were some of the escorts, but the clarification needed to be made.

With the "bad" noted the book remains highly recommended . Perhaps the author will edit the next edition with a little greater care.

More
My guess is that some young pilots of several nationalities are looking at this book as the year 2006 begins, not for the thrills but to see if there are applicable lessons to be learned. Certainly the Iranians and N Koreans learned some critical lessons which lead them to build multiple facilities deep underground and as far inland as possible, while at the same time adding weapons designed to keep US carriers as far offshore as possible.

The book also serves as a reminder of the volatility of the world as more dictatorships , and perhaps non-national groups, obtain nuclear weapons, either through internal development or exchange with other rogue nations. The difference between this and the Cold War is twofold, the Russian leaders made their personal survival the highest priority and we were not faced with highly sophisticated terrorist organizations who have no homeland, no capital and no industrial masses to hit.

Adding to the instability is Israel's plight as they see a radical Iran increase their nuclear weapon production rate while at the same time, on a daily basis, promising the glory of a nuclear holocaust which will exterminate Israel. On repeated occasions they have acknowledged the willingness to accept an Israeli nuclear strike as a cost of changing history.