Raid on the Sun(48)

At the end of December 1980 you called me into your office in Jerusalem and told me about a certain extremely serious matter. You did not solicit my response and I myself (despite my instinctive feeling) did not respond in the circumstances that then existed.

I feel this morning that it is my supreme civic duty to advise you, after serious consideration and in weighing the national interest, to desist from this thing. I speak as a man of experience. The deadlines reported by us (and I well understand our people’s anxiety) are not the realistic deadlines. Materials can be changed for materials. And what is intended to prevent can become a catalyst.

On the other hand Israel would be like a tree in the desert—and we also have that to be concerned about.

I add my voice—and it is not mine alone—and certainly not at the present time in the present circumstances.

Respectfully,

Shimon Peres



The letter, stiff and awkwardly worded, was purposefully oblique in case it fell into the wrong hands—especially the Israeli press. “Material” that could be changed referred to the so-called caramelized uranium. “What is intended to prevent can become a catalyst” reiterated Peres’s fears that bombing Osirak would only intensify Arab efforts to achieve a nuclear bomb. “Present time” and “present circumstances” referred to Peres’s conviction that the French elections, being held that very week, would sweep his close friend, socialist François Mitterrand, into the presidency. Mitterrand, far ahead in the polls, had openly opposed Chirac and Giscard d’Estaing’s decision to supply Iraq with uranium.

Peres pleaded for Begin to delay the raid. In truth, his letter had already accomplished that purpose. Top-secret plans had been leaked, the attack compromised. Deputy Prime Minister Yadin, convinced Baghdad would sniff out their plans, had earlier warned the cabinet: “They’re ready for us.” That prediction could be all too true now. Begin had been convinced all along that Labor would find some way to sabotage any raid on Osirak. Peres’s claim that his objection was only to the “timing” was a red herring.

“Mark my words,” Begin had told Sharon after the March cabinet meeting. “They would never accept such a decision. All the responsibility of doing this will be ours.”

Begin was furious. Who had leaked? And how many others knew? He called Eitan, Sharon, and Shamir. All agreed: the mission had to be scrubbed. Begin called Ivry at IAF command at Etzion and ordered the pilots to stand down.

He would bitterly resent Peres’s May Revolt for the rest of his life. He set about immediately to discover the source of the leak, the “betrayer.” Though it could not be proved, Begin and his supporters were convinced that former defense minister Ezer Weizman had tipped Peres and Labor leader Mordechai Gur the day before. Weizman, in on the planning from the earliest days, had bitterly opposed the attack. He had many friends within the military and in Begin’s government. Learning details of the attack would have been easy for the politician.

Begin vowed not to make the same mistake twice. From that day on, he announced, any decision on an attack on Osirak would be made by just three men: himself, Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir, and Agriculture Minister Ari Sharon.

The following week the French duly elected François Mitterrand their president, and he indeed responded to Israel’s objection to France’s nuclear treaty with Iraq. France would no longer engage in the sale of nuclear technology to Iraq, Mitterrand declared. But, regrettably, the country was bound to honor its present agreements with Saddam Hussein. Iraq would receive full delivery of all seventy-two kilos of enriched weapons-grade uranium.

According to Mossad, it already had.

A week later Begin met secretly with Sharon and Shamir. Eitan and Ivry were informed that the attack was set for Sunday, June 7, 1981. Ivry felt a great weight taken off his chest. For months, week after week, he had been edgy, ping-ponging mentally: Was the attack on or off? Would this be the Sunday?

The friction between the two team leaders, Raz and Nachumi, rubbed even rawer under the stress of waiting. Indeed, Raz had begun picking up strange signals from Nachumi. Two days after the mission had been canceled, back at Ramat David, he had been called to Spector’s headquarters. Raz walked across the base and quickly mounted the few steps into the long barrackslike structure housing the command and administrative offices. He passed various open doors and entered the outer vestibule of Spector’s headquarters. A frequent visitor, the squadron leader did not bother to wait for a formal announcement of his arrival. Instead, nodding to the secretarial staff and assistants manning the desks, most of whom were young college-bound kids doing their mandated military service, Raz strode directly into Spector’s inner office and was surprised to discover he already had a visitor. Nachumi stood beside Spector’s desk, leaning in toward the commander. The two of them had been talking softly, careful that their voices did not carry. As Raz entered the room, Spector and Nachumi looked up surprised—and, Raz realized—embarrassed. Neither man had expected to see Raz, that was clear. Raz knew immediately he had interrupted a very delicate conversation. He knew also, with a certainty he might not have been able to readily explain, that the two pilots had been talking about him. An awkward silence hung in the room for an uncomfortably long time.