One of the pilots was Amos Yadlin, an F-4 major who had recently returned from Hill with Falk and the third group. Tall, thin, with a full head of Kennedy-like brown hair, Yadlin appeared almost professorial, a look that complemented his quick, perceptive mind. He was also a seasoned combat veteran, seeing plenty of action in the Yom Kippur War. In some ways Yadlin was an easiergoing version of Raz. But Yadlin had a devilish side as well. One day when the teams were returning from another trek down to Sharm al-Sheikh, he jogged up to Katz standing on the tarmac, yelling, “You saved my life! Your checklist saved my life.”
“How?” Katz asked, gratified and, to be honest, a little surprised his notebook had come in handy so quickly. “I just made it.”
“Well, I had to pee,” Yadlin replied. “I couldn’t think of what to do. And then I remembered your checklists. I opened up one sleeve at a time and peed into them like a cup.”
Yadlin grinned as Katz looked at him in horror.
“They held the entire load!” Yadlin added proudly.
The squadron pilots overhearing the conversation broke into howls of laughter. Chagrined, Katz marched back down the tarmac to the briefing room alone.
Months into training it had become obvious the F-16s would have to carry two external fuel tanks, one under each wing. Designed by GD, each tank added an additional 3,000 pounds, or 450 gallons, of fuel. But carrying the two detachable tanks and two 2,000-pound slick bombs, the fighters had room for only two Sidewinders, one at the end of each wing, instead of the usual four. And, as already decided, there would be no jamming devices. The pilots would be at an even worse disadvantage.
The fuel problem was still not solved, however. During training flights Raz’s pilots were consistently running short of fuel, even with the wing tanks. The only thing that could help was to carry an optional centerline fuel tank, which held another 2,000 pounds, or 300 gallons, of fuel. But there was a problem: Israel had no centerline tanks. The U.S. Defense Department had excluded centerline tanks from the trade agreement. Since the planes had been sold to Israel on the strict condition that they be used for defensive purposes only, there was no reason, in the opinion of the U.S. Defense Department, that the IAF would need such tanks for long-range flying. Ivry immediately put in a plea for twelve centerline tanks. The Israeli Defense Ministry, the Foreign Ministry, and the ambassador to the U.S. all went to work intensely lobbying the U.S. to sell Israel the centerline tanks. In the meantime all Ivry could do was wait . . . and sweat.
The northern commander at Tel-Nof Air Force Base near Galilee, Gen. Avihu Ben-Nun, saw a new opening for his F-15s. The IAF had finally convinced the United States to sell Israel the F-15 conformal fuel tanks. Fastened to the fuselage at the base of the wings, the tanks would give the F-15s the range to reach Baghdad and back. Once again Ivry was forced to fend off another challenge to the F-16s as Ben-Nun argued to Eitan and high command that his F-15 squadron should be given the mission. Ivry countered that they had already progressed far into mission training at Ramat David. Ben Nun took Ivry’s refusal to make a switch as a personal rebuff. Meanwhile, word leaked down the chain of command, and Raz’s squadron grew anxious that the mission—whatever it was—was going to be pulled out from under them.
And then things got complicated.
Ever since Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had landed in Tehran in February 1979, Saddam had kept a jaundiced eye to his east. Socialist and secular, Hussein distrusted the bearded, fanatically religious Shi’ite Muslims who ruled Iran and made up the majority of the population in the southern half of his own country.
“This place hardly seems like part of Iraq,” Khidhir Hamza recalled Hussein grousing one day as a mob of Iraqi Shi’ite demonstrators chanted Khomeini’s name in the streets. “They don’t even speak Arabic.”
On September 17, 1980, Hussein, convinced that Iran was plotting his assassination with Iraqi Shi’ites, canceled a 1975 peace treaty with Iran and invaded the disputed Shatt al Arab estuary in the north of the Persian Gulf that formed the border between the two countries. Hostilities quickly escalated, and by September 22 the nations were in a state of all-out war, conducting air and large-scale ground assaults.
The evening of September 30, Ivry was still at work at Tel Aviv headquarters when he was informed that at least two Iranian F-4 Phantoms had just bombed al-Tuwaitha. Intelligence was still trying to get details, but initial reports indicated that the bombs had missed the reactor and damaged some laboratories and support facilities. The most serious blow was to Osirak’s water-cooling system and plumbing, which took a direct hit. In the end the damage was minor. Begin was furious, cursing the incompetent Iranians who could not “finish the job.” Ivry was also disturbed, but for a more practical reason. In response, Iraq put all its antiaircraft defenses on “alert time,” meaning the readiness time of al-Tuwaitha’s AAA batteries was significantly heightened. And, as an extra protection, Iraq launched a ring of tethered balloons twenty feet high around the Nuclear Center’s walls to interfere with low-flying bombers. Ivry’s already impossible attack plan was, if possible, now even more difficult. What could go wrong next? he wondered.