See buying choices for this item to see if it's one of the millions that are eligible for Amazon Prime.
Raid on the Sun
and over 300,000 other books are available for Amazon Kindle – Amazon’s new wireless reading device.
Learn more
|
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
This gripping account of Operation Babylon, the Israelis' 1981 raid on the Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak, is the first to draw on planners' and pilots' own memories. The raid was planned to follow a long campaign of espionage, sabotage and outright assassination by the Mossad, which had failed to prevent the French-built reactor from being about ready to produce weapons-grade plutonium in the summer of 1981. Then the Israeli air force, taking its new F-16s on their first combat mission and one far beyond their designed performance, struck, obliterating the reactor with no losses, few misses and only one civilian casualty. Tactics, technology and weapons are all presented in a clear manner that does not slow the pace. L.A.-based journalist Claire's group portrait of the eight superlatively skilled and trained pilots includes Zeev Raz, the squadron leader and now a general; the ace, Iftach Spector, who missed his target because he suffered a blackout induced by the flu; and Ilan Ramon, who became Israel's first astronaut and was lost on the Columbia.The final result reads like a techno-thriller that is difficult to put down once the mission gets airborne.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
From interviews the Israeli government allowed the author to conduct with the pilots who destroyed Iraq's nuclear reactor in 1981, journalist Claire dramatically reconstructs the origin and execution of the attack. Structurally splicing scenes of the pilots' preparations on the day of the attack with flashbacks to the espionage and intelligence activity that preceded it, Claire relates how carefully the Israelis watched the French sale and shipment of the reactor during the 1970s. Sabotage, most likely by the Israelis, failed to stop the project--obviously intended to produce plutonium for a nuclear bomb, not electricity, as Saddam Hussein proclaimed. Vowing never to allow a second Holocaust, Menachem Begin ordered the raid. The operation-- which is the heart of Claire's account-- faced an obstacle when it was determined that the distance to the target exceeded the range of the F-16 warplane. When that problem is ultimately solved, Claire proceeds to render the actual flight and attack in true pulse-pounding detail. An intense read that will carry military-affairs readers from cover to cover. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
See all Editorial Reviews
This gripping account of Operation Babylon, the Israelis' 1981 raid on the Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak, is the first to draw on planners' and pilots' own memories. The raid was planned to follow a long campaign of espionage, sabotage and outright assassination by the Mossad, which had failed to prevent the French-built reactor from being about ready to produce weapons-grade plutonium in the summer of 1981. Then the Israeli air force, taking its new F-16s on their first combat mission and one far beyond their designed performance, struck, obliterating the reactor with no losses, few misses and only one civilian casualty. Tactics, technology and weapons are all presented in a clear manner that does not slow the pace. L.A.-based journalist Claire's group portrait of the eight superlatively skilled and trained pilots includes Zeev Raz, the squadron leader and now a general; the ace, Iftach Spector, who missed his target because he suffered a blackout induced by the flu; and Ilan Ramon, who became Israel's first astronaut and was lost on the Columbia.The final result reads like a techno-thriller that is difficult to put down once the mission gets airborne.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
From interviews the Israeli government allowed the author to conduct with the pilots who destroyed Iraq's nuclear reactor in 1981, journalist Claire dramatically reconstructs the origin and execution of the attack. Structurally splicing scenes of the pilots' preparations on the day of the attack with flashbacks to the espionage and intelligence activity that preceded it, Claire relates how carefully the Israelis watched the French sale and shipment of the reactor during the 1970s. Sabotage, most likely by the Israelis, failed to stop the project--obviously intended to produce plutonium for a nuclear bomb, not electricity, as Saddam Hussein proclaimed. Vowing never to allow a second Holocaust, Menachem Begin ordered the raid. The operation-- which is the heart of Claire's account-- faced an obstacle when it was determined that the distance to the target exceeded the range of the F-16 warplane. When that problem is ultimately solved, Claire proceeds to render the actual flight and attack in true pulse-pounding detail. An intense read that will carry military-affairs readers from cover to cover. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
See all Editorial Reviews
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
Inside This Book
(learn more)
First Sentence:
Before the birth of its First Citizen, the flat, dusty village of Al Auja, just south of Tikrit and a hundred miles north of nowhere in the Mesopotamian desert, was best known to historians as the site where the vicious fourteenth-century Tartar chieftain Tamerlane chose to erect his infamous pyramid of skulls, a towering obelisk of death fashioned from the decapitated heads of thousands of slaughtered Persian soldiers. Read the first page Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
United States, Ramat David, Tel Aviv, Middle East, Nuclear Research Center, Khidhir Hamza, Saddam Hussein, General Dynamics, Saudi Arabia, Ba'th Party, General Ivry, Great Uncle, Hagai Katz, Iftach Spector, Soviet Union, World War, Yom Kippur War, Amos Yadlin, Doobi Yaffe, Sinai Peninsula, Ilan Ramon, Rani Falk, Relik Shafir, Zeev Raz, Amir Nachumi New!
Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Before the birth of its First Citizen, the flat, dusty village of Al Auja, just south of Tikrit and a hundred miles north of nowhere in the Mesopotamian desert, was best known to historians as the site where the vicious fourteenth-century Tartar chieftain Tamerlane chose to erect his infamous pyramid of skulls, a towering obelisk of death fashioned from the decapitated heads of thousands of slaughtered Persian soldiers. Read the first page Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
United States, Ramat David, Tel Aviv, Middle East, Nuclear Research Center, Khidhir Hamza, Saddam Hussein, General Dynamics, Saudi Arabia, Ba'th Party, General Ivry, Great Uncle, Hagai Katz, Iftach Spector, Soviet Union, World War, Yom Kippur War, Amos Yadlin, Doobi Yaffe, Sinai Peninsula, Ilan Ramon, Rani Falk, Relik Shafir, Zeev Raz, Amir Nachumi New!
Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 8
books:
See all 8 books this book cites
- Bullseye One Reactor by Clinton Dan McKinnon in Back Matter
- President Reagan The Role Of A Lifetime by Lou Cannon in Back Matter
- Saddam Hussein: The Politics of Revenge by Said K. Aburish in Back Matter
- By Way Of Deception: The Making And Unmaking Of A Mossad Officer by Victor Ostrovsky in Back Matter
- Saddam Hussein: A Political Biography by Efraim Karsh in Back Matter
See all 8 books this book cites
What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?
 |
70% buy the item featured on this page: Raid on the Sun: Inside Israel's Secret Campaign that Denied Saddam the Bomb |
 |
10% buy The Volunteer: The Incredible True Story of an Israeli Spy on the Trail of International Terrorists $16.47 |
 |
7% buy Brotherhood of Warriors: Behind Enemy Lines with a Commando in One of the World's Most Elite Counterterrorism Units |
 |
7% buy Vengeance: The True Story of an Israeli Counter-Terrorist Team $10.20 |
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Help others find this product — tag it for Amazon search
No one has tagged this product for Amazon search yet. Why not be the first to suggest a search for which it should appear?
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Customer Discussions
Beta (What's this?)
New! See all customer communities, and bookmark your communities to keep track of them.
|
This product's forum
(0 discussions)
Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Active discussions in related forums
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Product Information from the Amapedia Community
Beta (What's this?)Be the first person to add an article about this item at Amapedia.com.
› See featured Amapedia.com articles
Listmania!
|
|
So You'd Like to...
Look for Similar Items by Category
- Books > History > Asia
- Books > History > Middle East > Iraq
- Books > History > Middle East > Israel
- Books > History > Military > Intelligence & Espionage
- Books > History > Military > Weapons & Warfare > Nuclear
- Books > History > World
- Books > Nonfiction > Current Events > International
- Books > Nonfiction > Politics
- Books > Nonfiction > Social Sciences > Political Science
Up to 30% Off Lansinoh |
Make a Good Turn |
|||||||||
|
Your Recent History
(What's this?)|
You have no recently viewed items or searches.
After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in. Look to the right column to find helpful suggestions for your shopping session. |
Continue shopping: Top Sellers
| ||||
| ||
| ||
| ||
| ||
| ||
