The facility is surrounded by a sand berm four miles around and 160 feet high, and contained the French-built research reactor Osirak, destroyed by Israel in 1981 before it went online.
On May 3, 2003, a detachment of U.S. Special Forces led by Navy Cmdr. David Beckett and eight nuclear experts from the Department of Defense's Direct Support Team conducted a survey of the facility, finding the looting, similar to the situation in the nearby Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center.
See also: Iraqi production and use of weapons of mass destruction
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