Osirak

struction more than 20 years ago.

In June 1981, eight Israeli jets flew at 100 feet across Jordan and Saudi Arabia, evading detection to destroy the French nuclear reactor at Osirak, just outside Baghdad. The raid followed years of failed diplomacy: Saddam’s French, German and Belgian suppliers had refused to let anything disrupt their lucrative role in his oil-for-nukes program.

Until now, no one had told the full story of the extraordinary planning required for the raid and the derring-do of the pilots, who had calculated that there was a one-in-four chance of being shot out of the sky before reaching the target. Rodger Claire, a former magazine editor, has gained access to Israeli military records and to the pilots who handled the mission. In “Raid on the Sun,” he evokes the rigors and the risks of the plan.

Prime Minister Menachem Begin and his Likud allies, such as Ariel Sharon, had to stiffen the spines of Labor Party and intelligence officials who feared the repercussions of such a raid. “If I have a choice of being popular and dead or unpopular and alive,” Mr. Sharon told fellow cabinet members, “I choose being alive and unpopular.”