'Saddam Hussein planned to kidnap Begin,' former lawyer says
Palestinian operatives were meant to kidnap the then-prime minister in retaliation for Israel's attack on Iraq's nuclear reactor in 1981.
Saddam Hussein had planned to kidnap then-Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin in retaliation for Israel's attack on Iraq's nuclear reactor in 1981, according to a new memoir by the Iraqi dictator's attorney Badie Aref, Al Quds Al Arabi reported on Thursday.
In the upcoming memoir, Badie, who heard of the plan from one of the Iraqi intelligence chiefs, claims Palestinian operatives were entrusted with kidnapping Begin and bringing him to Baghdad.
Saddam eventually called off the plan after a Western leader, when learning of the kidnapping plot, asked him to give it up.
Badie did not provide any additional details, but the Arab newspaper promised to publish additional segments from the book.
On June 7, 1981, eight F-16 planes (one of which was flown by Ilan Ramon, who would later become the first Israeli astronaut) and six F-15 planes took off to Iraq (some 960 kilometers away). An hour and 40 minutes later, the planes dropped 10-ton bombs and destroyed the Iraqi nuclear reactor - still under construction at the time - completely.
Operation Opera (or Operation Babylon as it was also called) sparked international criticism, mainly following Iraq's declaration the reactor was not meant for military purposes.
After the operation, then-prime minister Begin said, "Are we to passively standby and know atomic bombs are being produced there?"
He called Saddam Hussein "a hard-headed megalomaniac, cunning, sophisticated and cruel," adding that Hussein was "willing to take high risks and drastic action to realize his ambition for self-aggrandizement."
