On June 7, 1981, “the Israeli air force bombed the Tuwaitha [nuclear] plant [in Iraq] in a stunning and high-risk raid by F-15 and F-16 fighters. The French reactor, known to the outside world as Osirak but called Tammuz 1 by the Iraqis, was destroyed. The Israeli government of Prime Minister Menachem Begin announced that it had conducted the raid in order to block Saddam Hussein from obtaining an atomic bomb with which he could destroy Israel.”
– James Risen, State of War, Page 96