Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Cheese eating ... mercenary reactor bombers?
So I'm reading Edward Luttwak's essay on Iran ("Three Reasons Not To Bomb Iran -- Yet") from the May issue of Commentary (of which more later), and I stumble across this rather startling passage (bold emphasis added):
In 1975, the Shah contracted with the French for enriched uranium and with Germany’s Kraftwerk Union consortium of Siemens and A.E.G. Telefunken, as well as with ThyssenKrupp, to build the first two pressurized light-water reactors and their generating units near Iran’s major port city of Bushehr. Work progressed rapidly until July 1979, when, after an expenditure of some $2.5 billion, the Germans abandoned Bushehr because Iran’s new revolutionary rulers refused to make an overdue progress payment of $450 million. It seems that Ayatollah Khomeini opposed nuclear devilry—and besides, anything done by the Shah was viewed with great suspicion.
At that point, one reactor (Bushehr I) was declared by the Germans to be 85-percent complete and the other (Bushehr II) 50-percent complete. Both were subsequently damaged during the war with Iraq that lasted until 1988, chiefly in air strikes flown by seconded French pilots. Siemens was asked to return to finish the work but, knowing that the German government would never allow the contract to proceed, refused.
I admit, the information that actual French pilots flew for Saddam's Iraq against Iran came as something of a surprise. Am I the only person out here who did not know that? Have you guys been giggling behind my back all this time? I don't think that's very nice...
6 Comments:
By 
, at
Wed Sep 13, 10:09:00 PM:
Perhaps suprising, perhaps true, perhaps none of the above.
German pilots flew for Franco's air force in the Spanish Civil War (according to Adolph Galland in "The First and the Last")
American Army Air Force pilots were 'seconded' to fly in China prior to the US entry into WWII to gain combat experience and help the Chinese.
The Soviets flew MiG-15's in Korea against us in the Korean War for the same reasons.
So I guess that is would not be that unusual for French pilots to be 'seconded' to Iraq to fly French made Mirage fighter-bombers to gain combat experience, and to advance French mercantilism. If Luttwak is actually correct.
Sometimes we think that the world has somehow 'changed' since the Cold War, etc. Yet national governments have, and still, coldly pursue their own 'interests'.
Consider that Ayatollah Khomeini wound up in Paris in 1978 (before he returned, Lenin-like, to Iran to invoke the second revolution in 1979, after the Shah was deposed) after he had lived in exile in Najaf (Iraq) for years with Ayatollah al-Sistani (also an Iranian), because the Shah complained to Saddam Hussein about the trouble he was causing, and at that time Hussein was deathly afraid of the Iranians.
-David
By , at
Wed Sep 13, 10:27:00 PM:
Jeez Who Knew?
Maybe this explains Saddam sending the Iraq Air Force over to Iran to avoid the USA air attacks at the being of the 1st Gulf War(I'm being very snarky here:). If I'm correct the pilots are still in Iranian prisons for war crimes against the Iranian people(I wonder if this was brought up between the two prez in the "summit" in Iran)I'm sure if any French pilot was captured he speaks perfect Farsi today. If Saddam can send the Iraq air force to a enemy(muslim brother) that he fought for over 9 years what does that say about WMD?
Mike S
By 
Jack, at
Thu Sep 14, 05:26:00 AM:
I hadn't heard it either.
A quick google pulls up some hits, in particular:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE0DA123AF932A15753C1A96E948260
Which is unconfirmed.
By , at
Thu Sep 14, 07:35:00 AM:
Viking:
The Grippen is a 3 1/2 generation fighter.
By TigerHawk, at
Thu Sep 14, 09:16:00 PM:
Sirius, the commenters here, left and right, are very good. We have some of the best commenters around, I think. Keep it up!
By , at
Fri Sep 15, 03:57:00 AM:
Viking,
The pipeline was never built....Saddam drew on the money to attack the Kurds & Iranians?
Got any thing to prove this? First I've heard of it.
Mike S
