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Operation Opera ((ヘブライ語: אופרה)),〔Perlmutter, p. 172.〕 also known as Operation Babylon,〔Amos Perlmutter, Michael I. Handel, Uri Bar-Joseph. ''Two Minutes over Baghdad''. Routledge (2nd ed.), 2008. p. 120.〕 was a surprise Israeli air strike carried out on 7 June 1981, which destroyed an Iraqi nuclear reactor under construction 17 kilometers (10.5 miles) southeast of Baghdad.〔 The operation came after Iran's unsuccessful Operation Scorch Sword operation had caused minor damage to the same nuclear facility the previous year, the damage having been subsequently repaired by French technicians. Operation Opera, and related Israeli government statements following it, established the Begin Doctrine, which explicitly stated the strike was not an anomaly, but instead “a precedent for every future government in Israel.” Israel's counter-proliferation preventive strike added another dimension to their existing policy of deliberate ambiguity, as it related to the nuclear capability of other states in the region.〔(Country Profiles -Israel ), Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) updated May 2014〕 In 1976, Iraq purchased an "Osiris"-class nuclear reactor from France.〔Ramberg, Bennett. ''Nuclear Power Plants as Weapons for the Enemy: An Unrecognized Military Peril''. University of California Press, 1985. p. xvii.〕〔Cordesman, Anthony H. ''Iraq and the War of Sanctions: Conventional Threats and Weapons of Mass Destruction''. Praeger, 1999. p. 605.〕 While Iraq and France maintained that the reactor, named ''Osirak'' by the French, was intended for peaceful scientific research,〔 the Israelis viewed the reactor with suspicion, and said that it was designed to make nuclear weapons.〔 On 7 June 1981, a flight of Israeli Air Force F-16A fighter aircraft, with an escort of F-15As, bombed and heavily damaged the ''Osirak'' reactor.〔Shirley V. Scott, Anthony Billingsley, Christopher Michaelsen. ''International Law and the Use of Force: A Documentary and Reference Guide''. Praeger, 2009. p. 182.〕 Israel claimed it acted in self-defense, and that the reactor had "less than a month to go" before "it might have become critical."〔Scott, p. 132.〕 Ten Iraqi soldiers and one French civilian were killed.〔Polakow-Suransky, Sasha. ''The Unspoken Alliance: Israel's Secret Relationship with Apartheid South Africa''. Pantheon (1 ed.), 2010. p. 145.〕 The attack took place about three weeks before the elections for the Knesset.〔 The attack was strongly criticized around the world, including in the United States, and Israel was rebuked by the United Nations Security Council and General Assembly in two separate resolutions.〔〔 Media reactions were no less negative: "Israel's sneak attack ... was an act of inexcusable and short-sighted aggression", wrote the ''New York Times'', while the ''Los Angeles Times'' called it "state-sponsored terrorism". The destruction of ''Osirak'' has been cited as an example of a preventive strike in contemporary scholarship on international law.〔Shue, Henry and Rhodin, David (2007). ''Preemption: Military Action and Moral Justification''. Oxford University Press. p. 215.〕〔 ==Iraq's nuclear program== (詳細はFrench Government to sell them a gas cooled graphite moderated plutonium-producing reactor and reprocessing plant, and likewise failing to convince the Italian government to sell them a Cirene reactor, the Iraqi government convinced the French government to sell them an Osiris-class research reactor.〔Perlmutter, pp. 41–42.〕 The purchase also included a smaller accompanying Isis-type reactor, the sale of 72 kilograms of 93% enriched uranium and the training of personnel.〔Stockman-Shomron, Israel. ''Israel, the Middle East, and the great powers''. Transaction Books, 1985. p. 334.〕 The total cost has been given as $300 million. In November 1975 the countries signed a nuclear cooperation agreement and in 1976 the sale of the reactor was finalized.〔 Construction for the 40-megawatt light-water nuclear reactor began in 1979 at the Al Tuwaitha Nuclear Center near Baghdad.〔Aloni, Shlomo. ''Israeli F-15 Eagle Units in Combat''. Osprey Publishing, 2006. p. 35.〕 The main reactor was dubbed ''Osirak'' (Osiraq) by the French, blending the name of Iraq with that of the reactor class. Iraq named the main reactor ''Tammuz 1'' (Arabic: تموز) and the smaller ''Tammuz 2''.〔Perlmutter, p. 46.〕 Tammuz was the Babylonian month when the Ba'ath party had come to power in 1968. On 6 April 1979, Israeli agents sabotaged the Osirak reactor awaiting shipment to Iraq at La Seyne-sur-Mer in France.〔A. DeVolpi, V.E. Minkov, G.S. Stanford, and V.A. Simonenko, Vladimir Minkov, Vadim Simonenko, George Stanford, "Nuclear Shadowboxing: Legacies and Challenges" ()〕 On the 14 June 1980, Mossad agents assassinated Yahya El Mashad, an Egyptian nuclear scientist who headed the Iraqi nuclear program, in a hotel in Paris, France. In July 1980, Iraq received from France a shipment of approximately 12.5 kilograms of highly enriched uranium fuel to be used in the reactor. The shipment was the first of a planned six deliveries totalling 72 kilograms.〔Holroyd, Fred. ''Thinking about nuclear weapons: analyses and prescriptions''. Routledge, 1985. p. 147.〕 It was reportedly stipulated in the purchase agreement that no more than two HEU fuel loadings, 24 kilograms, could be in Iraq at any time.〔Holroyd, p. 151.〕 Iraq and France claimed that the Iraqi reactor was intended for peaceful scientific research.〔''The 1982 World Book Year Book''. World Book Inc., 1983. p. 350.〕 Agreements between France and Iraq excluded military use.〔United Nations Staff. ''Yearbook of the United Nations 1981''. United Nations Pubns, 1984. p. 277.〕 The American private intelligence agency STRATFOR wrote in 2007 that the uranium-fueled reactor "was believed to be on the verge of producing plutonium for a weapons program".〔 (requires e-mail address)〕 In a 2003 speech, Richard Wilson, a professor of physics at Harvard University who visually inspected the partially damaged reactor in December 1982, said that "to collect enough plutonium (a nuclear weapon ) using ''Osirak'' would've taken decades, not years".〔Ragaini, Richard C. ''International Seminar on Nuclear War and Planetary Emergencies: 29th session''. World Scientific Publishing, 2003. p. 33.〕 In 2005, Wilson further commented in ''The Atlantic'':
Elsewhere Wilson has stated that
In an interview in 2012, Wilson again emphasised: "The Iraqis couldn't have been developing a nuclear weapon at Osirak. I challenge any scientist in the world to show me how they could have done so." Iraq was a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, placing its reactors under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards.〔 In October 1981, the ''Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists'' published excerpts from the testimony of Roger Richter, a former IAEA inspector who described the weaknesses of the agency's nuclear safeguards to the United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Richter testified that only part of Iraq's nuclear installation was under safeguard and that the most sensitive facilities were not even subject to safeguards. IAEA's Director-General Sigvard Eklund issued a rebuttal saying that Richter had never inspected ''Osirak'' and had never been assigned to inspect facilities in the Middle East.〔 Eklund claimed that the safeguards procedures were effective and that they were supplemented by precautionary measures taken by the nuclear suppliers.〔 Anthony Fainberg, a physicist at the Brookhaven National Laboratory, disputed Richter's claim that a fuel processing program for the manufacturing of nuclear weapons could have been conducted secretly.〔 Fainberg wrote that there was barely enough fuel on the site to make one bomb, and that the presence of hundreds of foreign technicians would have made it impossible for the Iraqis to take the necessary steps without being discovered. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Operation Opera」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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