Letter
After Osirak
24 October 1991
‘Once the Iraqi nuclear threat had been removed by the Israeli strike on the Osirak reactor in June 1981,’ Joost Hiltermann writes, ‘Iran no longer felt the need to pursue a nuclear path’ (LRB, 4 February). The opposite is true. Following the destruction of Osirak, Iraq decided to launch an independent nuclear programme in order to reduce its reliance on foreign suppliers. In the LRB of 24...
