Operation Desert Fox

A BGM-109 Tomahawk is fired from an Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer during the fourth wave of attacks on Iraq.

Operation Desert Fox (German: "Company Wüstenfuchs") was the military code name for the four-day bombardment of Iraqi targets between 16 and 20 December 1998 by the armed forces of the USA and Great Britain .

The bomber and cruise missile attacks on around 100 targets had the stated aim of reducing Saddam Hussein's ability to manufacture weapons of mass destruction . Operation Desert Fox was thus another high point in the military Iraq conflict that has been simmering since 1991 between the United Nations , the USA and Iraq over compliance with sanctions and no-fly zones .

In response to the attack, three of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council ( Russia , France , People's Republic of China ) pleaded for the lifting of the eight-year Iraqi oil embargo and the restructuring or dissolution of the United Nations Special Commission UNSCOM , which is responsible for military disarmament of Iraq, as well as the dismissal of its Australian chairman Richard Butler .

The attacks came simultaneously with the start of impeachment proceedings (Engl. Impeachment) on 19 December 1998 against then-US president Bill Clinton in connection with the Lewinsky affair and was rated by some media as a red herring.

General Anthony Zinni denied an allusion to Erwin Rommel , who earned the nickname "Desert Fox" during World War II as part of his command of the Africa Corps .

Previously, US forces had retaliated against the Iraqi regime in September 1996 in the form of Operation Desert Strike .

Supporting documents and comments

^ "To answer the second one first, we didn't name it after a German general. The name was chosen probably because we intended to use surprise and immediate reaction, to be a little bit foxy, if you will. And it was no intent to use Rommel as an example for this. I don't approve those names, the Secretary does. We did recommend the name ... (Laughter) “Zinni, Anthony: Operation Desert Fox press conference , December 21, 1998. Accessed August 5, 2010.

Web links

Commons : Operation Desert Fox - Collection of Pictures, Videos and Audio Files

Operation Desert Fox - BBC News

[1] "To answer the second one first, we didn't name it after a German general. The name was chosen probably because we intended to use surprise and immediate reaction, to be a little bit foxy, if you will. And it was no intent to use Rommel as an example for this. I don't approve those names, the Secretary does. We did recommend the name ... (Laughter) “Zinni, Anthony: Operation Desert Fox press conference , December 21, 1998. Accessed August 5, 2010.