Think through what you just said. Iraq, holder of the world’s greatest oil reserves, builds a nuclear reactor? they might as well have built a sand factory!
There was only 1 logical reason for the reactor and that was to process nuclear fuel. At least that is what Saddam’s brother in-law said before he was executed as a traitor for talking.
There are many world events that played out because of paranoia , but I don’t think this was one of them.
That may or may not be true, but it does not justify Israel’s irresponsible act of terrorism in blowing up the reactor. Either you believe in international law, or you don’t. Intl law is not for selective enforcement. But if you had read the article, you would have noticed some technical details, like the Osirak reactor was unsuitable for plutonium production. But I guess those technical details shouldn’t get in the way of one’s political religion.
"French nuclear reactor engineer, the late Yves Girard, was aware of the carelessness of the Canadians in supplying a heavy water reactor to India, and the French in selling the DIMONA reactor to Israel without insisting on any international safeguards to prevent military use. In 1975 Girard refused to help to supply a heavy water moderated reactor to Iraq. Instead the reactor, OSIRAK, was moderated by light water, and therefore deliberately unsuited to making plutonium for bombs. IAEA safeguards promised regular inspections and French technicians were to be present for 5 or 10 years following initial operation but they left immediately after the bombing. It would not have been possible for them to make an undetected conversion or to misuse the fuel supplied.
Yet in May 1981 the Israeli Air Force bombed the OSIRAK reactor. The Chairman of the Board of Governors of IAEA, the late Bertrand Goldschmidt, was livid (as were many other experts). While as a Jew he had especial sympathy with Israel, he was concerned that Israel had attacked the attempts by the world, with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), to control the genie which was let out of the bottle in 1945. I visited the nuclear research reactor in Iraq on December 29 1982 and visually inspected the reactor (which had been only partially damaged) and its surrounding equipment. To collect enough plutonium using OSIRAK would have taken decades not years. "