Osirak

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OSIRAK

a french-produced nuclear reactor sold to iraq.

Osirak was originally developed in 1964 as a material-testing reactor. The purchase contract was signed on 17 November 1975; on 13 January 1976, Iraq signed a contract with Italy to purchase "hot cells" used to separate plutonium, which would make the reactor capable of producing fissionable material for an atomic bomb. Construction began in the late 1970s on the outskirts of Baghdad and was supposed to be completed by late 1981. Osirak was destroyed by Israel's air force on 7 June 1981; part of a smaller reactor survived.


Bibliography


Timmerman, Kenneth R. The Death Lobby: How the West Armed Iraq. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1991.

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