1998 Bill Clinton - Operation Desert Fox

We are all keenly aware of the Iraq war in 2003 and the claim that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. We heard many times about Saddam Hussein's refusal to let the the U.N. inspectors in. But how many of us remember Operation Desert Fox? In 1998, President Clinton as commander in chief led a four day bombing campaign on Iraqi targets. The justification for this attack was Saddam Hussein's refusal to comply with the United Nations Security Council resolutions and the belief that Iraq was producing, storing and maintaining weapons of mas destruction. It was also widely believed that Iraq had the ability to deliver an attack on it's neighbors, and that Saddam Hussein was a threat to the interests of America. On October 31st, 1998 Clinton signed into law H.R. 4655, the Iraq Liberation Act. And on December 16th, began a four-day bombing campaign on Iraq. The stated goals were to degrade his ability to produce and use weapons of mass destruction, not eliminate it.

With this bombing, President Clinton delivered "a powerful message to Saddam. If you act recklessly, you will pay a heavy price." It is no wonder, that just three years later, the world would be looking to Saddam Hussein once again.

In 1998, President Clinton addressed the nation during his state of the union address with these words:

"Saddam Hussein has spent the better part of this decade and much of his nation's wealth not on providing for the Iraqi people but on developing nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons and the missiles to deliver them. The United Nations weapons inspectors have done a truly remarkable job finding and destroying more of Iraq's arsenal than was destroyed during the entire Gulf war. Now Saddam Hussein wants to stop them from completing their mission.

I know I speak for everyone in this chamber, Republicans and Democrats, when I say to Saddam Hussein, "You cannot defy the will of the world," and when I say to him, "You have used weapons of mass destruction before. We are determined to deny you the capacity to use them again."

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=56280
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Iraq_(1998)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction
http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1998/12/16/transcripts/clinton.htmlhttp://tomnichols.net/blog/2014/06/21/who-started-that-story-about-iraq-wmds-and-al-qaeda-thats-right-bill-clinton/http://www.defense.gov/Photos/newsphoto.aspx?newsphotoid=1718