Bombing of Iraq (December 1998)

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Operation Desert Fox

Date	December 16, 1998–December 19, 1998
Location	Persian Gulf
Result	Cease fire; much of Iraqi infrastructure destroyed.

Combatants

United States,

Commanders

Strength

30,500

Unknown

Casualties

None

600-2,000 dead

The December 1998 bombing of Iraq (code-named Operation Desert Fox) was a major four-day bombing campaign on Iraqi targets from December 16-December 19, 1998 by the United States and United Kingdom. These strikes were undertaken in response to Iraq's continued failure to comply with United Nations Security Council resolutions as well as their interference with United Nations Special Commission inspectors.

It was a major flare-up in the Iraq disarmament crisis. The stated goal of the cruise missile and bombing attacks was to "degrade" Saddam Hussein's ability to produce weapons of mass destruction, as well as seeking the auxiliary objective of disrupting Saddam's ability to maintain his grip of power.

President Clinton announced a new policy toward Iraq of "regime change." On October 31, 1998 the president signed into law H.R. 4655, the "Iraq Liberation Act." [1] [2] The new Act appropriated funds to Iraqi opposition groups in the hope of removing Saddam Hussein from power and replacing his regime with a democracy.

The Act also said that "Nothing in this Act shall be construed to authorize or otherwise speak to the use of United States Armed Forces," except in direct aid to an active Iraqi rebellion.

1 Accusations against the UN weapon inspectors by Scott Ritter
2 "Degrading", not eliminating
3 Reaction
4 Criticism
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] Accusations against the UN weapon inspectors by Scott Ritter

Iraq had terminated cooperation with the U.N. inspection team in August 1998, but under U.S. and UK pressure, Saddam Hussein agreed to allow them back in the country in November.^{[citation needed]} Earlier in the year, Iraq accused Butler and other UNSCOM officials of acting as spies for the United States, claims later supported by Scott Ritter, an American officer on UNSCOM's staff.^{[citation needed]}

UNSCOM weapons inspectors were not expelled from the country by Iraq as has often been reported (and as George W. Bush alleged in his 2002 "axis of evil" speech) (Source). Rather, according to Butler himself in his book Saddam Defiant (2000),^{[citation needed]} it was U.S. Ambassador Peter Burleigh, acting on instructions from Washington, who suggested Butler pull his team from Iraq in order to protect them from the forthcoming U.S. and British airstrikes.^{[citation needed]}

According to later reports from Scott Ritter,^{[citation needed]} UNSCOM inspectors acted covertly on behalf of the United States to deliberately provoke Iraq into non-compliance,^{[citation needed]} thus providing US warplanners with a Casus belli.^{[citation needed]}

Ritter accused Butler and other UNSCOM staff of working with the US, in opposition to their UN mandate.^{[citation needed]} He claimed that UNSCOM deliberately sabotaged relations with Iraq by insisting on gathering intelligence unrelated to prohibited weapons,^{[citation needed]} some of which was to be used in the forthcoming bombing.^{[citation needed]}

Butler has since denied Ritter's allegations,^{[citation needed]} questioning why Ritter did not raise them until several years after the bombing.^{[citation needed]}

(In the run up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, advocates of invasion pointed towards Iraq's refusal to re-admit UN inspectors following the 1998 bombing, citing it as evidence that Iraq was reconstituting its WMD programs.^{[citation needed]} Ritter attacked this assertion, arguing that Iraq's refusal to cooperate with UN inspectors was understandable given the infiltration and corruption of UNSCOM leading up to Operation Desert Fox.^{[citation needed]} Iraq eventually re-admitted UN inspectors before the 2003 invasion,^{[citation needed]} but the US invaded Iraq regardless of their work and they were withdrawn.^{[citation needed]})

[edit] "Degrading", not eliminating

A B-1B is loaded with bombs at Ellsworth AFB on December 17, 1998.

Clinton administration officials said the aim of the mission was to "degrade" Iraq's ability to manufacture and use weapons of mass destruction, not to eliminate it. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was asked about the distinction while the operation was going on:^[1]

"I don't think we're pretending that we can get everything, so this is - I think - we are being very honest about what our ability is. We are lessening, degrading his ability to use this. The weapons of mass destruction are the threat of the future. I think the president explained very clearly to the American people that this is the threat of the 21st century. [. . .] [W]hat it means is that we know we can't get everything, but degrading is the right word."

Main targets of the bombing included weapons research and development installations, air defense systems, weapon and supply depots, and barracks and command headquarters of Saddam's elite Republican Guard. Also, one of Saddam's lavish presidenal palaces came under attack. Iraqi anti-air batteries, unable to home in on the American and British jets, began to blanket the sky with near random bursts of flak fire. The air strikes continued unabated however, and cruise missile barrages launched by naval vessels added to the bombs dropped by the planes. By the fourth night, most of the specified targets had been damaged or destroyed and the Operation was deemed a success. U.S. Special Forces members who had been on the ground in northern Iraq to protectKurdish settlements from retalation withdrew, and the air strikes ended.

[edit] Reaction

In reaction to the attack, three of five permanent members of the UN Security Council (Russia, France, and the People's Republic of China) called for lifting of the eight-year oil embargo on Iraq, recasting or disbanding UNSCOM, and firing its chairman, Australian diplomat Richard Butler.

According to published reports that have since been discredited, Saddam Hussein sought revenge against the U.S. These reports claim that Saddam sought to direct terrorist organizations to attack U.S. targets. Farouk Hijazi, Iraq's ambassador to Turkey, reportedly met with bin Laden. ([3], [4]) Corriere della Sera, a Milan newspaper, translated by the CIA, reads: “Saddam Hussayn and Usama bin Ladin have sealed a pact. Faruk Hidjazi, the former Director of the Iraqi Secret Services and now the country’s Ambassador to Turkey, held a secret meeting with the extremist leader on 21 December.” The newspaper had direct quotes from Hijazi without specifying the source of the quotes. (Page 328)(PDF) Former CIA counterterrorism official Vince Cannistraro notes that bin Laden rejected Hijazi's overtures, concluding that he did not want to be "exploited" by Iraq's secular regime.[5] Hijazi, arrested in April 2003, has been cooperating with U.S. intelligence, and has offered no evidence of such cooperation. The Boston Globe reported, "Indeed, intelligence agencies tracked contacts between Iraqi agents and Al Qaeda agents in the '90s in Sudan and Afghanistan, where bin Laden is believed to have met with Farouk Hijazi, head of Iraqi intelligence. But current and former intelligence specialists caution that such meetings occur just as often between enemies as friends. Spies frequently make contact with rogue groups to size up their intentions, gauge their strength, or try to infiltrate their ranks, they said." (3 August 2003).

Baghdad bombardment.

On January 11, 1999 Newsweek magazine reported an Arab intelligence officer, reported to know Saddam personally, told Newsweek: "very soon, you will be witnessing large-scale terrorist activity by the Iraqis." The planned attacks are said to be Saddam's revenge for the "continuing aggression" posed by the no fly zones that show the countries are still at war since Operation Desert Fox.[6] On January 31, 1999, Moscow newspaper Novosti claimed that "hundreds of Afghan Arabs are undergoing sabotage training in Southern Iraq and are preparing for armed actions on the Iraqi-Kuwaiti border. They have declared as their goal a fight against the interests of the United States in the region." [7]

No such attacks ever materialized. The 9/11 Commission report notes that after American missiles destroyed Iraqi intelligence headquarters in 1993 as punishment for a bungled assassination plot against George H.W. Bush, "no further intelligence came in about terrorist acts planned by Iraq." [8] It also reported that the Commission's investigation had uncovered no "evidence indicating that Iraq cooperated with al Qaeda in developing or carrying out any attacks against the United States," and no evidence of any "collaborative operational relationship." [9]

See also: Iraq disarmament crisis timeline 1997-2000 and Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda

[edit] Criticism

Some critics of the Clinton administration expressed concern over the timing of Operation Desert Fox. The four-day bombing campaign occurred at the same time the U.S. House of Representatives was conducting the impeachment hearing of President Clinton. Clinton was impeached on December 19, the last day of the bombing campaign. Critics claimed the timing of this operation was a so-called "Wag the Dog" scenario aimed at diverting media attention away from the impeachment proceedings.^{[citation needed]} Some congressional Republicans hinted at holding hearings to investigate the timing of the bombing campaign, but this never materialized.^{[citation needed]} A few months earlier, similar criticism was leveled during Operation Infinite Reach, wherein missile strikes were ordered against suspected terrorist bases in Sudan and Afghanistan, on August 20. The missile strikes began three days after Clinton was called to testify before a grand jury during the Lewinsky scandal and his subsequent nationally televised address later that evening (August 17), in which Clinton admitted having an inappropriate relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

Other critics, such as former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said the attacks didn't go far enough: "I would be amazed if a three-day campaign made a decisive difference," Kissinger said just after the operation ended. "[W]e did not do, in my view, enough damage to degrade it [Iraq's programs for weapons of mass destruction] for six months. It doesn't make any significant difference because in six months to a year they will be back to where they are and we cannot keep repeating these attacks. [. . .] At the end of the day what will be decisive is what the situation in the Middle East will be two to three years from now. If Saddam is still there, if he's rearming, if the sanctions are lifted, we will have lost, no matter what spin we put on it." Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security Adviser for President Carter, thought the strikes were useful. He said he thought the bombings would set back Iraq's WMD programs for a time, but continued sanctions and containment, coupled with future bombing, could contain any threat from Iraq.[10]"Online Newshour" Web site, for the "Newshour with Jim Lehrer" program, transcript of "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED? December 21, 1998" interview with Kissinger and Brzezinski, accessed September 25, 2006