Clinton orders airstrike on Iraq: Dec. 16, 1998
On this day in 1998, President Bill Clinton ordered airstrikes against Iraq after Saddam Hussein’s regime refused to cooperate with United Nations weapons inspectors. The four-day bombing campaign by the United States and Great Britain, code-named Operation Desert Fox struck military targets throughout the country.
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. When Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was asked about the distinction while the operation was going on, she responded: “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.”
While the bombing was ongoing, the Vanguards of Conquest, a terrorist group, issued a communique to fellow Islamist groups calling for attacks against the United States “for its arrogance” in bombing Iraq.
Some Republican members of Congress accused Clinton of using the airstrikes to divert attention from ongoing impeachment proceedings that had been lodged against him. (The day before the strikes took place, the Republican-led House issued a report accusing Clinton of committing “high crimes and misdemeanors,” related to the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal. The charges centered on a sexual liaison in the Oval Office with an intern that Clinton at first falsely denied had taken place.)
Sen. Trent Lott of Mississippi, the GOP majority leader, called the airstrikes’ timing “suspect” and “cursory.” Branding the strikes as a ploy to direct attention away from the congressional impeachment initiative, Republicans also predicted that the air attacks would ultimately prove futile in persuading Hussein to comply with the U.N.’s demands. The GOP took the view that only sustained bombardment of Iraq and the direct overthrow of Saddam’s dictatorship could put a stop to Iraq’s purported clandestine weapons program.
Clinton, however, in a televised address to the nation on this day, brushed aside Republican criticism. He declared that the Iraqi president was wrong if he thought “the serious debate [on impeachment] would distract Americans or weaken our resolve to face him down.” The president stressed that his decision to launch airstrikes remained critical to America’s vital interests.
Ultimately, public and media attention focused on Clinton’s battle to save his presidency and to avoid being found guilty in an all-but-certain Senate trial. (The Senate acquitted him in February 1999.) Meantime, the strikes failed to intimidate Saddam into allowing weapons inspectors unfettered access to his alleged chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction. Saddam’s stance ultimately led George W. Bush, Clinton’s successor, to order an American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 — with consequences that are evident to the present day.
SOURCES: WWW.HISTORY.COM