Two Minutes over Baghdad

Air & Space Power Journal, Spring, 2005 by Merrick E. Krause

Two Minutes over Baghdad, 2d ed., revised and updated, by Amos Perlmutter, Michael Handel, and Uri Bar-Joseph. Frank Cass (http://www. frankcass.com), Taylor & Francis Group, 11 New Fetter Lane, London, EC4P 4EE, United Kingdom, 2003, 184 pages, $34.95.

In 1981 Ronald Reagan became president, Iran agreed to release American prisoners after confining them illegally lot 14 months, and for some reason Time Magazine declared Hall and Oats the band of the decade. But that year also saw controversy in the Middle East after an Israeli preemptive strike on the Iraqi nuclear plant at Osirak. This aerial attack marked a pivotal moment in the history of that region, and its effects remain deeply woven into contemporary global politics. If not for this intercession by the Israelis, Iraq would have become a nuclear power before it attacked Kuwait ill 1990, and some individuals believe that Saddam Hussein might have launched a nuclear strike against Iran or Israel before the twentieth century closed. It's difficult to imagine the outcomes of the Iran-Iraq War or of Operations Desert Storm, Southern and Northern Watch, and Iraqi Freedom if Saddam had acquired nuclear weapons in the interim.

Two Minutes over Baghdad tells the story of the raid on the Osirak reactor from tactical and strategic perspectives. Although authors Perlmutter, Handel, and Bar-Joseph discuss nitty-gritty tactics, they spend most of their analysis exploring important political and military questions. The book also describes the doctrine of preemption and Israel's security problem--issues that sound far too familiar today. According to the authors, "All these factors make the Osirak raid one of the most important, and formative, events of the twentieth century's second half, with a legacy extending well into the twenty-first century as well. Clearly the attack on the Osirak reactor may well be the most important single bombing raid in history, perhaps save only the far bloodier atomic bombing of Hiroshima in 1945" (p. xi). My sentiments exactly.

This new edition merits consideration due to its excellent historical treatment of proliferation and preemption. The authors have significantly revamped the first edition, which appeared in 1982, adding discussions on preemption doctrine and relating the attack on the reactor to contemporary politics after 9/11. They also include details gleaned from formerly classified Israeli documents written in Hebrew, which many researchers normally overlook.

US Airmen, strategists, and military decision makers have two good reasons to read Two Minutes over Baghdad. First, the decision-making process that led to this event, as well as the political and strategic outcomes, are instructive. Readers will see that, although the analogy might seem legitimate at first blush, our security dilemma today differs from Israel's in 1981. Thus, our calculus--the risk/benefit calculation that yields policy--must be different. Indeed, it is dangerous to use arty historical analogy without closely considering the differences in assumptions and in the strategic environment.

Second, preemption and nuclear proliferation are the most important political debates of our age. Our security-strategy documents now make preemption a policy option. This book provides insight into how a democracy can choose a preemptive strategy, the intelligence necessary to execute it, and the information campaign that must accompany the strategy. Some of the faces were different, but Israel was battling the same nexus of terrorists, despots, and weapons of mass destruction (or mass effects) that we face today. (Some faces were the same--Saddam and Jacques Chirac, president of France, for instance. Moreover, the roles of the French, Italians, and Russians were eerily similar and well documented.)

The authors offer an exceptional discussion of casus belli (justification for war). Was an Arab bomb, Saddam's stated objective, a legitimate casus belli for Israel? The usually quiet Israeli chief of staff painted a compelling picture of the situation: "If the Iraqis get the bomb, it will be as though all the countries in this region are hanging from a light sewing thread, high above. Any attempt to use the nuclear bomb will lead immediately to the tearing of that thread and the crashing of the states" (p. 59). The book goes on to describe internal debates and opposing viewpoints, as well as political and military results of the attack.

The authors note that, at the time, the US media failed to recognize Israel's security dilemma, which we now confront: "Nuclear weapons in the hands of fanatic dictators and unscrupulous terrorists committed to the annihilation of Israel was a casus belli.... There was no way Israel ... would allow itself to be at the mercy of ultimate weapons owned by the most degenerate regime in the Middle East" (p. 152, emphasis in original). In fact, America formally condemned the attack on 8 June 1981, calling it "unprecedented" (p. 154). However, Senator Alfonse D'Amato (R-NY) differed with the administration, presciently remarking that "the bombing was perfectly proper, legitimate and it was a preemptive strike that should have been expected" (p. 155). Senator Daniel Moynihan (D-NY) agreed: "The Israelis did what they had to do. Anything that takes out a nuclear installation I am in favor of" (p. 155). Portions of the debate over preemption in 1981 readjust like the accounts of that subject in current newspapers.