978-1-4222-3442-6

70

I RAQ

Throughout the 1990s, Saddam Hussein bedeviled U.S. policy- makers. President Bill Clinton, who took office in 1993, pursued a policy of containment. The hope was that if Saddam could not be removed, he could at least be isolated and held in check through continued application of the economic sanctions. On occasion, however, the Clinton administration resorted to air strikes on Iraq. In June 1993, for example, President Clinton ordered a cruise missile attack on the office of Iraq’s intelligence agency in Baghdad following revelations of an Iraqi plot to assassinate his predecessor, George Bush. Saddam’s moves against the opposition Iraqi National Congress in 1996 provoked another cruise missile strike. But for U.S. policymakers, uncertainty about Iraq’s weapons programs was the greatest concern. At different times throughout 1996 and 1997, efforts by UNSCOM inspectors to inspect various sites in Iraq were blocked or delayed, resulting in several U.N. dec- larations of noncompliance with security council resolutions. In September 1998, Saddam Hussein demanded that American mem- bers of UNSCOM had to leave the country, accusing them of spy- ing. In response the United Nations withdrew the entire team, and President Clinton sent U.S. Navy warships into the Persian Gulf, threatening Iraq with air strikes. Cornered, Saddam permitted the inspectors to return. The dictator used many methods to frustrate UNSCOM’s inspec- tion efforts. Saddam declared his presidential palaces—some of which were huge compounds where just about anything could be hidden—off-limits to inspectors. He refused to allow UNSCOM to return to sites it had previously inspected. UNSCOM was prohibit- ed from searching the headquarters of the Baath Party in Baghdad. In December 1998, with military action against Iraq imminent, the United Nations withdrew its inspectors. The United States and Great Britain then began Operation Desert Fox, a bombing cam- paign to force Saddam to comply with the U.N. resolutions. During