Talk:Osirak

message: This article is somewhat biased as it claims that the reactor, because it was under IAEA supervision, was harmless yet the Iraqis always threatened to use it against Israel.
Gotta get used to it.  Wikipedia (and most of the users) are anti-Israel.  (I, however, am not.) GreatGatsby 19:53, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  old comments 

message: The spelling is muddle between Osirak and Osiraq.  In pretty much all reporting I have seen it's Osirak with good search (while not perfect, indicative) showing Osirak at 113,000 and Osiraq 30,000.  I am going to change spellings to what the title is and if there is any objection please raise it here -- however, consistency is key. gren グレン 05:18, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Naming 

message: Since the United States failed to find any evidence for the Iraqi nuclear program described by Khidir Hamza (see Iraq Survey Group), why does Wikipedia still have the February 7, 2003 quote from Khidir Hamza in the Osirak article? --JWSchmidt 04:16, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Seconded. Removed the quote, kept the summary, and added that nothing had been found in the end. David.Monniaux 07:18, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Khidir Hamza 

message: :The facility, one of Iraq's most fortified targets, was not fully destroyed until another raid, when 48 F-117s targeted the facility 7 more times for over a month as well as 17 F-111Fs weeks later.
Can someone provide a source for this?  Only 55 F-117s were made, so I think it's more likely that there were 48 strikes rather than 48 aircraft.  Tempshill 20:21, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Minor point on the F-117 attack 

message: :The Iranian attack on the site on September 30, 1980 had little success. 
Wow, this attack, predating the Israeli attack, was news to me.  Is there an article on the Iranian attack, or a source somewhere?  It ought to be described with more than a single sentence.  Tempshill 20:22, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The earlier Iranian attack was not that big of a deal.  It did no damage to the reactor.  The bombs bounced off the dome and set some nearby petrol tanks on fire.  The real significance of the Iranian attack is what the Israelis learned from it, that is, that they would have to dedicate on average 3 bombs per floor of the site in order to adequately penetrate and destroy.  24.193.49.117 18:04, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Iranian attack 

message: I've never heard a satisfactory answer to the fate of the HEU supplied by France.  I remember news reports stating Saddam Hussein claimed it was destroyed in the Israeli attack. But U-235 cannot be destroyed by non-nuclear means and traces of it in the desert should be easy to detect. --agr 20:27, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: What happened to the U-235?

message: I've changed the category. There's no evidence it was a power station, and it seems extremely unlikely. It seems to have been a research reactor. Andrewa 05:42, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Power station or research reactor

message: According to the german wiki the used uranium was supposed to be shipped back to France once removed from the reactor. Does anyone have information about that? Nevfennas 10:49, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Uranium

message: Currently, the year portion of the dates in this article are in a seperate link from the rest of the date. Jon 14:14, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Date Links need cleaned up

message: I suggest that a "the neutrality of this article has been questioned" to this page. It seems that the general opinion of the article is against the bombing, when in fact that is just the "public opinions" of the politicians. Many of them were quite happy about this, INCLUDING the french prime minister, Chirac, among others. Now I was just watching a Military Channel one hour documentary on the Israeli strike, while I realize this is going to be skewed in the other direction, it seems of a vastly different opinion than this page. One question I have is, why are we taking the opinion of a physicist about this issue, why would he know anything about it, even if he had visited the site. I see attempts at the page of neutrality but it still seems these are just stick-ins to try and make it look neutral. There are no arguments FOR the destruction of the reactor. Of interesting note is how the show says that Suddam had already started the building of a facility to convert the spent nuclear fuel into plutonium. The show notes how most politicians were against it publicly but widely for it privately. If any want to see this it is going to be on military channel again on the 25th Thursday. The show is titled "Raid on the Reactor." The page might also note that when the strike was done it was done purposely on a Sunday when most of the french scientists were off duty and also how the nuclear fuel supply was undamaged so as to not spread it all over and irradiate the site.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ergzay (talk • contribs) 09:10, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Neutrality 

message: I've reverted a recent edit. The article now shows that the reactor was 40 MW. I've seen academic sources in support of both 70 and 40 MW, but I think the consensus is that the Israeli's overestimated the reactor's power level. I have sources if anyone objects to this change. Dchall1 (talk) 05:32, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Shouldn't you just include the sources anyways, regardless of what you're changing, whether people object to your changes or not? Put them in. -- Vedexent (talk) - 18:55, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Better yet, as you've " seen academic sources in support of both 70 and 40 MW", mention the fact that there is disagreement as to the reactor design's possible output, and put references for both views in, plus references for the  "consensus ... that the Israeli's overestimated the reactor's power level" (consensus implies more than one person agrees to this, so that shouldn't be hard). -- Vedexent (talk) - 18:57, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reactor power level 

message: The materials test reactor (MTR) was a French design of a type called Osiris [...note this is not sourced...] Despite Iraqi claims that the plant was for peaceful use, it was an unusual choice — an MTR design is useful for countries with established nuclear reactor construction programs, being used to test and analyse the effects of neutron flux upon metals used in reactor components. However, MTR is not particularly useful to countries which have no established reactor programs, unless they are interested in transmuting U238 to Pu239 to make a bomb, via the high neutron flux characteristic of an MTR.5 However, 5 does not exactly say that; just that Osiraq could "conceivably supply" weapons-grade material by "the irradiation of targets of natural or depleted uranium inside the reactor."
By contrast, according to Harvard physicist Richard Wilson, in a paper presented to the World Federation of Scientists, The nuclear research reactor OSIRAK was NOT like the DIMONA reactor, which was a heavy water cooled reactor and a near copy of the French OSIRIS reactor but was a light water cooled reactor explicitly designed to be unsuited for making plutonium.(7) This view was held by many authorities.(8) (9) (10) Jafar had written a report on the subject which confirms this view(11). I was convinced when I visited the bombed reactor in 1982(12). This point should not be a matter of dispute for any nuclear physicist or engineer who can easily do the calculations for him(her)self. Indeed, I know of no calculation, accurate or otherwise, that claims differently.7.   Yves Girard, "Un neutron entre les Dents" (1997) Editions Rives Droite, Paris, France. Girard explained this point in more detail to Paul Lochak and myself at a private dinner on 1995 8.   Report to UN Security Council by Dr Ecklund, Director-General of IAEA. 19th June 19819.   Paper by Dr Gruemm, IAEA Bulletin, December 198110.  Testimony in US Congress by Dr Herbert Koutz and Dr Eugene Weinstock, nuclear proliferation experts from Brookhaven National Laboratory July 198111.   Jafar D Jafar and Imad Khaddouri "The possible production of Pu239 from the IRT 2000 (OSIRAK) reactor" Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission report October 1978 made public in 198312.   Richard Wilson "A visit to the bombed nuclear reactor at Tuwaitha, Iraq," Nature, 302, March 31, 1983http://www.physics.harvard.edu/~wilson/publications/OSIRAK(2)#N_7_<eleland/talkedits> 15:15, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: At the graduation of Yeshiva University in 1982, Senator Mark Hatfield, not particularly known for his support of Israel, was the speaker. He said he was interested in why the condemnation was so light, and did further research. The part I remember was that he asked the Library of Congress what a country like Iraq would use a reactor like that for, and they said, basically, "a bomb". This is all OR (I attended thay year, which was the year prior to my graduation), but perhaps there are published accounts of that address. P.S. Was it called Tammuz 1 or Tammuz 17? Mzk1 (talk) 15:17, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reactor design, plutonium production, factual & neutrality issues 

message: "The strike force flew 680 miles (1,100 km) across Jordan, Saudi Arabia and into Iraq to bomb the target".  Did they fly over Jordan?  The map seems to show that they specifically went out of their way to avoid Jordan... probably because they were at war with Jordan at the time.  Any confirmation with this? gren グレン 05:07, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Jordan 

message: I added back the reference to the inspection by Richard Wilson in 1983. This was deleted by Jkp1187, who said "Removing questionable reference to Nature magazine. Cite to the magazine itself (if you've checked it), not to a secondary source."  Point taken, so I removed the reference to Nature and just cited the book it came from.  My original intent was to balance out the uncited claim that the strike was a "serious blow to the Iraqi nuclear program". Since my sentence is backed up by someone's published research, I believe it is valid and should remain. Zatoichi26 (talk) 01:12, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  A published book is better.  Thanks.  Did Wilson publish his findings in a report someplace?  Would much prefer to cite to that if possible.  Jkp1187 (talk) 23:19, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry for long delay in responding. Chomsky's book says the report was published in the journal Science, however I don't have access to it.Zatoichi26 (talk) 18:43, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Oops - Make that "Nature", not "Science". Zatoichi26 (talk) 18:43, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Inspection by Dr. Richard Wilson

message: The article writes:"Osirak, also spelled Osiraq, (French: Osirak; Iraqi: Tammuz 1, اوسیراک), was a 40 MW light-water nuclear materials testing reactor (MTR) in Iraq. It was constructed by the Iraqi government at the Al Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center, 18 km (11 miles) south-east of Baghdad in 1977. "
Well, this reactor never was really inaugurated.The construction begans in 1977?Reading the article I think so.201.8.242.50 (talk) 01:46, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Never inaugurated

message: Both articles are pretty much on the same subject, and duplicate most information (aftermath, debate over Osirak's capabilities, etc.). I suggest merging them. Alternatively, wiki can prune both articles (e.g. leave discussion of Osirak's capabilities in the Osirak article and discussion of Opera's aftermath at the Opera article?), but these are IMHO so intertwined I feel a merge is more appropriate. 79.176.8.207 (talk) 04:49, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge proposal: [[Operation Opera]] to Osirak article