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By Way of Deception

By Way of Deception

By Way of Deception

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BY WAY OF DECEPTION 27age. The key was bringing down the dome at the heart <strong>of</strong> theplant. An Israeli combatant was also in the area with a beacon,sending out a strong signal in short beeps on a predeterminedfrequency to guide the fighters to their target.There are essentially two ways to find a target. First, you can see itwith your eye. But to do that at speeds greater than 900 miles anhour you have to know the area well, especially for a relativelysmall target. You go by the landscape, but you have to know theterrain, recognize particular landmarks, and obviously the Israelishad not had the opportunity to practice their maneuvers overBaghdad. They had practiced over their own territory, however, ona model <strong>of</strong> the plant, before heading <strong>of</strong>f to attack the real thing.The other method <strong>of</strong> finding a target is to have a beacon, a homingdevice, as a guide. They had one outside the plant, but to makeabsolutely sure, Damien Chassepied, a French technician whohad been recruited by the Mossad, was asked to deposit abriefcase containing a homing device inside the building. Forreasons unknown, Chassepied lingered inside and became theonly human casualty <strong>of</strong> the extraordinary assault.At 6:30 p.m. in Iraq, the planes climbed from deck level, wherethey'd been flying so low (to avoid radar) that they could see thefarmers in the surrounding fields, attaining a height <strong>of</strong> about2,000 feet just before reaching the target.So fast was their climb that it baffled the defenders' radar, and thesun setting behind the raiders blinded the Iraqis manning a ring <strong>of</strong>anti-aircraft guns. The fighters then swooped down so swiftly, oneafter the other, that all the Iraqis had time to do was fire some <strong>of</strong>their anti-aircraft guns harmlessly into the air. But no SAMmissiles were fired, and no Iraqi aircraft were sent in pursuit asthe raiders turned and headed back to Israel, flying at a higheraltitude and taking a shorter route back directly over Jordan,leaving Saddam Hussein's dreams <strong>of</strong> turning Iraq into a nuclearpower in tatters.As for the plant itself, it was devastated. The huge dome cover onthe reactor building was knocked clean <strong>of</strong>f its foundation and thebuilding's heavily reinforced walls were

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