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
Review
Advance Praise for Raid on the Sun
“Rodger Claire handles a complex story with ease and assurance. Infused with an understanding of the pilots and their historical mission, RAID ON THE SUN illustrates how what they achieved for Israel was as vital as that earlier flight of the Enola Gay to Hiroshima to end World War Two. Claire has created a patient, scrupulous story that still unfolds with the pace and verve of a thriller. Don’t wait for the movie of the book. Buy it now.” —Gordon Thomas, author of Gideon’s Spies: Mossad’s Secret Warriors
“RAID ON THE SUN is an extraordinary look into the most secret, and perhaps the finest, air force on the planet. It is also a blistering indictment of the international arms industry that sell modern weapons to anyone with money. RAID ON THE SUN is required reading for everyone in the age of terror.” —Stephen Coonts, author of Flight of the Intruder
“A stunning eye-opener, shocking you with the realization of the enormous service the Israeli Air Force rendered the free world with its 1981 attack on Saddam Hussein’s nuclear facility. Claire went right to the source—the Israeli pilots who flew the mission—to tell in colorful detail the full story of this historic strike.” —Walter Boyne, author of Operation Iraqi Freedom: What Went Right, What Went Wrong and Why
Review
Advance Praise for Raid on the Sun
?Rodger Claire handles a complex story with ease and assurance. Infused with an understanding of the pilots and their historical mission, RAID ON THE SUN illustrates how what they achieved for Israel was as vital as that earlier flight of the Enola Gay to Hiroshima to end World War Two. Claire has created a patient, scrupulous story that still unfolds with the pace and verve of a thriller. Don?t wait for the movie of the book. Buy it now.? ?Gordon Thomas, author of Gideon?s Spies: Mossad?s Secret Warriors
?RAID ON THE SUN is an extraordinary look into the most secret, and perhaps the finest, air force on the planet. It is also a blistering indictment of the international arms industry that sell modern weapons to anyone with money. RAID ON THE SUN is required reading for everyone in the age of terror.? ?Stephen Coonts, author of Flight of the Intruder
?A stunning eye-opener, shocking you with the realization of the enormous service the Israeli Air Force rendered the free world with its 1981 attack on Saddam Hussein?s nuclear facility. Claire went right to the source?the Israeli pilots who flew the mission?to tell in colorful detail the full story of this historic strike.? ?Walter Boyne, author of Operation Iraqi Freedom: What Went Right, What Went Wrong and Why
Raid on the Sun: Inside Israel's Secret Campaign That Denied Saddam the Bomb FROM OUR EDITORS
The Barnes & Noble Review from Discover Great New Writers
Long before Saddam Hussein became a household name and the alleged presence of "weapons of mass destruction" became the center of a national debate, we now know with certainty that the former Iraqi dictator was perilously close to manufacturing nuclear weapons as far back as the early 1980s. If it wasn't for the bold and, at the time, controversial 1981 military strike by the Israeli air force on a nuclear reactor outside Baghdad, the balance of power in the Middle East might look significantly different than it does today.
Claire was the first journalist to be given exclusive access to the classified materials and Israeli military personnel involved in the raid on the al-Tuwaitha nuclear complex, and his frightening re-creation of the political and military climate of the late 1970s and early 1980s makes for compelling reading. But Claire's greatest achievement is his ability to bring the reader into the lives of the eight Israeli pilots as they train for, and ultimately, accomplish, their top-secret mission, one whose ramifications continue to be felt today. No less thrilling a story than Black Hawk Down and the Discover Award–winning Ghost Soldiers, Raid on the Sun is an important military chronicle and one hell of a ride. (Summer 2004 Selection)
FROM THE PUBLISHER
Raid on the Sun tells the story of how Israel plotted the unthinkable: defying its U.S. and European allies to eliminate Iraq's nuclear threat. Rodger Claire re-creates a tale of personal sacrifice and survival, of young pilots who trained in the United States on the then new F-16 fighter bombers, then faced a nearly insurmountable challenge: how to fly the 1,000-plus-kilometer mission to Baghdad and back on one tank of fuel. He recounts Israeli intelligence's "black ops" to sabotage construction on the French reactor and eliminate Iraqi nuclear scientists, and he recounts the action on June 7, 1981, when the planes roared off a runway on the Sinai Peninsula for the first successful destruction of a nuclear reactor in history.
FROM THE CRITICS
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. (On sale Apr. 13) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
Lack of good intelligence-gathering sources has plagued the United States for decades-long before the evident disappearance of the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction despite the use of all our technology. This was not the case in 1981, when the Israeli Air Force destroyed Iraq's first nuclear reactor. Iraq had purchased its nuclear reactor from France in 1975 and had scientists at work on extracting plutonium to develop an atomic weapons program. Claire, the first journalist granted access to classified documents and interviews with strike participants, details how the Israeli government obtained high-resolution satellite photographs of the site from the United States, adapted newly acquired F-16 fighters so that they could make the flight without refueling, and secretly trained pilots for the mission. Claire breathes life into this largely forgotten event, and his sensitivity to the human element of the story-especially the ability of the Israelis to obtain human intelligence in planning their response-is striking. Extremely well written, this is highly recommended for all libraries.-Charles M. Minyard, U.S. Army, Blountstown, FL Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
Weapons of mass destruction? Look for them in the rubble of Iraq's al-Tuwaitha nuclear facility, destroyed by Israeli flyers 23 years ago. After attaining power, writes Los Angeles-based journalist and screenwriter Claire, Saddam Hussein set about making Iraq a nuclear power. But early on, "for all Hussein's obsession with control, it was clear that Iraq had been taken for a ride by the superpowers." The Soviets, for instance, sold Hussein a leaky reactor in the early 1960s, for which the Soviets charged by the ton and layered on all kinds of useless and ancient hardware. Hussein had his revenge: he ordered his scientists to figure out how to develop weapons-grade materials from the reactor, then expelled the Soviets in 1972 and stopped payment. Claire marvels at the ingenuity of those scientists, among them Khidir Hamza, who worried about "his part in enabling Saddam's ambitious plans to become a nuclear state" but still figured that the achievement of building the Arab world's first nuclear weapon would look good on his resume. Enter France, which sold Hussein a better reactor and helped speed the process along. Enter Israel, which had no intention of sharing nuclear-power status with a hostile neighbor; it launched a daring air raid on Iraq that involved crossing over hundreds of miles of desert only a hundred or so feet above the ground. The pilots, among them Israeli's first astronaut, passed directly above Jordanian King Hussein's yacht; fortunately, he didn't pick up the phone to call Baghdad, and the raid went on as planned, destroying the Iraqi nuclear plant with letter-perfect precision and making the French technicians there very glum indeed-as well as displeasing US Secretaryof State Alexander Haig, who called the raid "reckless" and briefly suspended arms sales to Israel. Drawing on interviews with the Israeli pilots involved, Claire's well-paced account is of interest to aerial-warfare buffs, and a useful if minor footnote to the war against Hussein. Agent: David Halpern/Robbins Agency
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