Raid on the Sun

Rating:
Summary: Amazing, thrilling story, excellent read
Review: An amazing book!! Filled with background information on Saddam and Iraq, as well as a thrilling tale of how the Israeli's managed to plan and execute a covert mission to bomb Saddam's nuclear reactor. The author does an excellent job of bringing the Israeli Air Force pilots to life and manages to convey the importance and urgency they felt in accomplishing their mission. One of the best books I've read in years!!!

Rating:
Summary: Great Read - Credible?
Review: I agree with the other reviewers. It is a captivating story and well worth the read. However, the author uses Victor Ostrovsky as a source of information on many occasions when discussing Mossad operations. Ostrovsky's credibility has been seriously questioned, in part by his former colleagues in the Mossad who have suggested he embellishes his stories to sensationalize and sell his own books. Further, the author lends credibility to the worst consipiracy theories about the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty in the '67 war. He states that "the Liberty was clearly flying U.S. colors and had a score of US Navy sailors on its topdeck," implying that the Israelis attacked with knowlege of the Liberty's origin. This and similar theories have been refuted in an excellent book by Judge Jay Cristol - "The Liberty Incident" - and by the recent declassification of the Israeli pilot radio transcripts from the attack.

These two wrinkles lead me to question the credibility of the book's entire narative - though all in all, its a cool story.

Rating:
Summary: This is one of the best surprises I've read
Review: I didn't expect this book to be this good. It really reads like a short Tom Clancy thriller. It is a very good, detailed account of the planning, and covert operations of the attack. It has everything; secrecy, high stakes, behind the scenes, espionage, humor, and first hand accounts by all the participants. I remember hearing the attack on the evening news in 1981, but I can't believe how little the world has known about the details (many of which were wrong). To me, this book wasn't dull and dry, but very exciting and a fast read. It gives very good background without going into overwhelming, worthless details. I highly recommend it especially to those who are readers of aviation and military history. It sheds a floodlight on an all but forgotten world changing event.

(Also recommend) "Thunder Run: The Armor Strike to Capture Baghdad" & "Six Days of War"


Rating:
Summary: Interesting, but too many errors
Review: I enjoyed this book, although it seemed that the author was trying to boost the page count by including extraneous details. The writing wouldn't pass muster either in a serious newspaper or in a writing class.

The part that bothered me the most was the lack of proofreading. For example, there's a description of the liftoff of the fully loaded fighters which talks about passing the 5000 meter mark on the runway. Even B-52 bombers don't require 5000 meters, much less fighter planes. [Diego Garcia, the US military base in the Indian Ocean has 2.25 mile runways for B-52s, which is only about 3.6km or 3600 meters.] As another example, there are several references to Ammunition Hill in Jerusalem (Givat Hatachmoshet) which is first mistransliterated as Givat Hatachmoshem and then mistranslated (although I can't recall the translation).

It's a fun read, but it would be better at half the length and twice the proofreading.

Rating:
Summary: A true page turner
Review: I was very impressed with this book. I thought it did an excellent job of covering all of the action (what Isreal was doing, what France was doing, what Iraq was doing, etc.).

The book itself is very enjoyable and it moves very fast.

My greater surprise is that this bombing hasn't been hashed about in the news (given the daily drone about the Iraq war). This raid, over 20 years ago, had an immense impact on what the entire world faces today. Had Isreal not taken this action, the world would be a very different place. The war against Iraq would have been far worse (possibly involving nuclear weapons). Jacques Chirack can kiss my . . . he would sell any arab country a nuclear reactor today, if the price was right (emphasis on the fact that arab countries don't need nuclear reactors).

I was surprised the author didn't politicize the issue. He made casual reference to world leaders expressing the above point, but that was the extent of it. In my opinion, a saparate book can be written about the political implications of this bombing (20 years after the fact).

Rating:
Summary: Lucky it was Iraq and not North Vietnam
Review: Raid on the Sun is more than an explanation of the successful 1981 Israeli Air Force (IAF) attack on Iraq's al-Tuwaitha atomic bomb factory near Baghdad. The book is also a historical and contemporary explanation of Middle East politics and Israeli and United States politics in particular. The book is easy to read - good flow, a good war story, and creates admiration for those flying a high risk air attack.

Too many books about Israel are propaganda overwhelming context. By contrast, author Rodger Claire is exceptionally objective and though some sources may be questionable, he definitively explains his sources in endnotes.

The main story is an operationally detailed description of the attack from inception, political decision making, planning, intelligence, deception of the United States, the bombing run, right to the political aftermath. It's a good story well told and often from the pilot's point of view - the reader is often in the cockpit. The author also sets the context for the attack by explaining the duplicity, profit, and conspiracy of the French government to provide a bomb making nuclear capability to both Israel and Iraq [and now Iran]. Jacques Chirac is front and center. There are the usual Israeli jabs at the structured United States military and equipment. Demonstrably, the United States Air Force F-16 aircraft, the versatile fueling modifications, and training though not intended for this attack made the attack possible. You'll read about the IAF pilot unable to correctly use his navigation equipment, attacking the target off course, flying a 360 degree loop with full bomb load to successfully realign on the target. The F-16 is a great aircraft. A Mirage would have come apart at the rivets.

There's a bonus in this book. The author offers the usual apologia about the deliberate attack on the U.S. Navy electronic spy ship Liberty [much earlier in the 1967 Mid East War] and the profuse regrets by the Israeli government (yea, right). But, here's the surprise. The Israeli Air Force pilot, Iftach Spector, who led the Liberty attack that killed and wounded about fifty American sailors, strafing life rafts as well, was also the squadron commander of the unit attacking the Iraqi nuclear facility. Spector presumably has a vision problem. He couldn't see the United States flag on the Liberty and was the only pilot to completely miss the Iraqi nuclear target.

Credit the author, Claire, for his candidness. Most books by Israelis about the Israeli military paint a too self-flattering picture - best this, best that, best everything. Claire shows all the flaws. There's the puerile squadron commander, the one who can't bomb the target, successfully demanding he replace a junior pilot scheduled and trained for the mission. There's the ego centrism about who will lead the mission, abysmal operations and communications and KH-11 security, navigation errors, and the arrogance shown to US Air Force Air Police when the pilots were training in the States. There's a sense of arrogance about anything American - they violated the treaty with their best ally -- seemingly always manipulating the United States commitment to Israel. The excuse is sovereignty as to opposed to fidelity. Israel claims the best military intelligence in the world but they flew right over the King of Jordan's yacht on the way to Baghdad as the King alerted his own Air Defense. Of course the IAF avoided the formidable Iraqi Air Defense. But give us a break, the Iraqi Air Defense units shut down all their SAM and ZSU AAA systems to go to dinner right before the attack. Scrambling to get the last flight of Israeli F-16's, the Iraqi ZSU 23 crews stupidly fired their cannon rounds into other ZSU 23 crews. Lucky the IAF wasn't flying against the North Vietnamese. Confounded by world wide condemnation, Prime minister Begin responding publicly, confused, thinking he's describing the Iraqi nuclear facility instead mistakenly reveals the location of Israel's storage sight for Israel's 100 plus nuclear weapons 120 feet below the Israeli reactor at Dimona. Those are the weapons Israel denied. If you get the sense this wasn't a model operation, you're right.

The author draws a final conclusion that the 1981 attack on al-Tuwaitha was the inspiration and legacy of the aggressive and preemptive Bush administration's strategic doctrine of preemption or "preventive war" against Iraq. A strategy advocated by Vice President Chaney, and his neoconservatives in the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans , (specifically Dep. Sec. of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, Under Secretary Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, and Pentagon and Likud (Israel's leading right wing party] policy advisor Richard Richard Perle.) Maybe so.

This book will get you thinking. Despite all the world criticism endured by Israel for the attack, it just may have saved Allied troops from nuclear weapons in the Wars with Iraq.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent subject and writing
Review: Raid On The Sun is a very well written book, literally a "page turner". I couldn't put it down.

I can't add anything others have already said here, but to the positive reviewer who nevertheless wished more dirt on France and Jacques Chirac, I would want to know more too. But perhaps much more would detract from the action that pushes the narrative of this book. All the details on Chirac might be better placed in a prosecutor's criminal complaint.

Rating:
Summary: Black Hawk Down meets Charlie Wilson's War, squished.
Review: Raid on the Sun is fascinating, enthralling, and a quick read. I received it in the mail on a Saturday afternoon and finished it by Sunday night.

Some reasons I liked it:

The book is objective. While the book clearly celebrates the destruction of Saddam's nuclear facility, the Israelis are shown in the book to be ruthless and almost paranoid at times. The Mossad, Irael's version of the CIA, kills almost without conscience, all over the world. The book doesn't shy away from the "innocent" Frenchman who was killed in the attack on the Osirak reactor. Rodger Claire details the duplicity Israel used in fooling its most trusted and closest ally, the United States, in order to gain better information and equipment. In other words, it is not simply a white-washed pro-Israeli book. It gives both sides, which is nice.

However, it does portray the Israelis as misunderstood heroes who were perhaps ahead of their time in understanding the threat of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East. At the time, the United States officially condemned Israel for the strike, but clearly it was a gutsy move that the U.S. increasingly appreciates to this day.

The book has a good pace. It's not merely about a bombing mission. It goes into how the mission was meticulously planned, how the pilots trained and prepared, how intelligence was gathered all over the world, and how internal political changes in France, Iran, Israel, and the United States factored into the crafting of the plan.

I almost wish the book were longer and more in-depth; its brevity is one of its strengths and weaknesses all at once. The abbreviations are profuse, but there is a guide to them at the beginning of the book. After a a few dozen pages, the abbreviations (AAA, GCI, KH-11, MH-84, SAM, etc.) become easier to immediately identify and understand.

I would definitely recommend this book to just about anyone, because it sheds some light on the way things are in the world today, and because it is a real thriller of a book. Weapons of mass destruction were not some mythical and fabricated justification for war in Iraq, based on the history in the region. Intelligence experts in 2002-2003 had good reason to believe the worst of Saddam Hussein and his progress at "going nuclear," given his past. The book details Saddam Hussein's quest for nuclear weapons, as well as his motives for seeking them, dating back to the early 1970s.

I wish it had expanded on some of the Mossad activities, more of the political machinations, more of the policy ramifications, and more of the individual lives of the key players. In general, there could be much more amplification. But it is still an amazing book, and one you can probably finish on a plane ride or at the beach one afternoon.

Rating:
Summary: Great story about amazing events
Review: Reality is better than fiction, and this book proves it. Combining a detailed, analytic and often humerous decription of the raid and meticulous preparations for it, including inter-personal dynamics and ego wars within the Israeli defense establishment, with zesty morsels of Mossad operations in various countries, this book tops any 007 account. How grateful the US, Iran, Saudi Arabia and many other countries should be for the elegant and courageous work of the Israeli Air Force.

Rating:
Summary: Fortune favors the bold
Review: The first part of this book, the cloak and dagger material featuring the Mossad, is drawn from Victor Ostrovsky's _By Way Of Deception_ and reportage by Seymour Hersh. These sources have generated considerable skepticism and controversy in the past, so reader beware.

The second part, focusing on the actual mission, is better. Rodger Claire was granted access to the mission pilots themselves, and their stories are first rate. They were superbly trained, highly motivated, and fiercely competitive. While cross-training on the F-16 in the United States, they impressed the USAF trainers with their incisive technical questions. At the time of this mission they were possibly the best fighter pilots in the world.

This section of the book answers a lot of mysteries, such as how the mission succeeded on a single tank of fuel per plane, how they avoided enemy interception, and why one of them missed the target. Also valuable is material from an interview with an Iraqi nuclear scientist, showing French perfidy in selling Saddam the reactor and uranium in the first place, and his eye-witness account of the Falcons swooping in to bomb his place of work. Thankfully for him, he was gettin his car fixed.

There are a number of annoying factual errors; for instance, Israel did not have F-4 Phantoms during the 1967 war, nor was the F-16 a U.S. Navy aircraft. There are also some surprises. Most of us know that mission pilot Ilan Ramon died in the Columbia disaster, but it's interesting to learn that another pilot, Iftach Spector, led the mistaken attack on the USS Liberty during the 1967 war.

Given the caveats about the first part of the book, I recommend it heartily. These brave pilots and their audacious mission bought the region a precious few more years to deal with Saddam. A bulls-eye!