Intense air and naval missile attacks, carried out by the US-led coalition forces against Iraq, called Operation Desert Fox, targeting Iraqi government camps and sites, and observers say they were targeting the late Iraqi President Saddam Hussein personally.

The attack, which began on December 16, 1998, and lasted for 4 days, came under the pretext that the Iraqi regime did not cooperate with the international committees to search for weapons of mass destruction.

Excuses for the attack

Professor of modern and contemporary Iraq history at the University of Mosul, Dr.

Bashar Fathi Al-Aqidi, was surprised by the accusation by the head of the International Inspection Committee, Richard Butler, of Iraq not cooperating with his committee, especially since Iraq at that time was suffering from years of economic siege that weighed on its shoulders and the Iraqi government was seeking to reduce this pressure by obeying the requests of the inspection committees.

For his part, professor of political science at the University of Mosul, Mahmoud Ezzo, considered that Operation Desert Fox was part of the ongoing US pressure on the Iraqi regime before 2003, and aimed primarily at forcing Iraq to make more concessions.

Ezzo adds to Al-Jazeera Net, during that period there was a fundamental problem between Iraq and the inspection committees, with regard to visiting or inspecting some sites, especially very sensitive sites, within the Iraqi state, such as the presidential office buildings, presidential palaces, and palaces complexes that existed in all provinces. Iraqi.

Attribution considered that the Desert Fox comes as part of the ongoing US pressure on the Iraqi regime at the time (Al-Jazeera Net)

Bill Clinton scandal,


and Izzo points out that the basis for that process is an attempt to find an outlet for former US President Bill Clinton - who was going through a scandal inside the White House - through the American media, by announcing the bombing of Iraq, and preoccupation with the issue of biological and chemical weapons, and their programs in Iraq.

He added that Clinton was under great pressure from the US Congress, due to his relationship with the Oval Office trainee, Monica Lewinsky, in addition to the other goal of returning Iraq to be under the American hammer, under constant pressure on him at the time.

Retired Major General Majid al-Qaisi, director of the Security and Defense Program at the Center for Policy-Making in Istanbul, speaks that in addition to the Clinton scandal with Lewinsky, there was an Iraqi complaint that the international body of inspectors had been infiltrated by US intelligence, when it established a so-called black box, inside Baghdad, for eavesdropping. On Iraqi calls and positioning, and when Iraq realized this, it expelled the weapons of mass destruction inspectors.

The American aircraft carrier "USS" (USS) in the Gulf during its participation in Operation Desert Fox (Reuters - Archive)

Target sites

In Desert Fox, American warplanes carried out 623 sorties, against 100 targets, and dropped 540 bombs, and the British carried out 28 sorties, against 11 targets, and the bombing killed nearly 62 Iraqi soldiers, wounding twice that number, as well as killing 82 civilians, according to Al-Qaisi. .

He added, as the bombing destroyed an agricultural school and destroyed 12 other schools, between elementary and preparatory schools, it destroyed water tanks that were benefiting about 300 thousand Iraqis in Baghdad, and it also led to the bombing of an oil refinery in Basra, given that this refinery is carrying out oil smuggling operations and breaking The US and Western sanctions on Iraq, while the US and Britain announced that the operations only target military installations.

Military sites, radar stations, and surface-to-air missile sites were also destroyed, as surface-to-surface missiles were destroyed after 1991 - according to Al-Qaisi - and all the facilities that possessed these missiles were destroyed, as Iraq had Scud missiles, some of which reach 650 km.

The retired Major General continues that the American planes also bombed anti-ship missile batteries in the Faw peninsula (the far south of Iraq), under the pretext that they threaten navigation in the Gulf.

Al-Aqidi confirms that more than 70 military sites and headquarters of the Iraqi leadership were hit, a number of palaces of the late Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, and a main headquarters of the Baath Party at the time, as well as the targeting of oil wells in southern Iraq.

US National Security Adviser Sandy Berger was quoted as saying at the time, that this operation was a direct target of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, and that the main goal was to eliminate the Iraqi chemical, biochemical and nuclear weapons program.

Al-Qaisi considered that Iraq did not possess the capabilities to avoid Operation Desert Fox (Iraqi Press)

Violent attack

The attack began with a very violent bombardment with Tomahawk missiles, about 400 missiles (which are more than the missiles that the US forces struck in 1991). American B52 aircraft, capable of carrying 7 tons of bombs that targeted airports and strategic locations in Iraq, participated in the operation. According to Ibrahim Ismail Al-Rawi, general manager of the Shaheed Company for Iraqi Military Manufacturing in the 1990s.

Al-Rawi added to Al-Jazeera Net, that the campaign targeted missile training centers and other areas in Taji camp, north of Baghdad, but in military accounts, such losses were not calculated, and were not very effective.

It is believed that the attack was supposed to continue until the surrender of President Saddam, but they could not reach the target, due to the objection of the countries of the world, especially France, China and Russia to this measure.

Al-Aqidi believes that the purpose of this operation is to try to exhaust the Iraqi infrastructure and prepare for a new phase of overthrowing the existing political system at the time, and the strikes were aimed at eliminating the remaining capacity of the Iraqi army, which still enjoys a kind of power after the restructuring. A part of the Republican Guard brigades after 1991, which the Americans consider the main pillar of the Iraqi army.

Attempts to avoid the blow

Iraq tried to avoid these strikes, as it succeeded with France, China and Russia, to talk to the other side to prevent them from launching the attack, according to the narrator.

And he believes that the plans are drawn before, because America wants to start a war in the region, to destroy the Iraqi army and bring in the opposition.

Regarding Iraq's internal attempts to mitigate the effects of the bombing, Al-Rawi reveals that the employees of the military manufacturing facilities remained in their places as human shields, indicating that this protected about 50% of the installations related to military manufacturing so that they would not be attacked.

In the same context, Al-Qaisi points out that Iraq did not have the capabilities to avoid the strike, and added, "We were receiving strikes, but we could not respond, because all of Iraq's capabilities were destroyed, whether the capabilities of the air force that were buried, and the air force aircraft were scrap and without backup tools." , And they cannot fly, not even fly in the permitted area, and the ground forces lost about two-thirds of their strength at the level of chock-pads, armor and mechanisms, and we did not possess those missiles, and there was an Iraqi impasse caused by the 1990 war.

Prelude the invasion

This process was a prelude to a larger military campaign, and an experimental process to test Iraqi capabilities, in the possibility of confronting America and Iraq's ability to mobilize domestic or international public opinion, in order to respond to the possible US invasion, according to the political science professor Ezzo.

For his part, Al-Aqidi supports the opinion that Operation Desert Fox was a prelude to the invasion of Iraq, and throughout the period between 1990 and 2003 it worked to exhaust the Iraqi interior so that it would be unable to withstand any new aggression, in addition to that the United States began preparing the preparations for the establishment of a coalition. International gives it a legal and legal cover for the attack on Iraq.

Al-Qaisi notes that Iraq is the cornerstone of the regional security system, and the Americans may have won the war but lost the peace. What Iraq suffers today as a result of the invasion confirms the lack of clarity of the US post-war strategy, and thus the region has become open to all regional conflicts.