Operation Desert Fox 1998 and the "other war of 1999"

Historian Andrew Bacevich in "Neglected Trinity: Kosovo and the Crisis in U.S. Civil-Military Relations", his contribution to the collection of essays edited by himself and Eliot Cohen, War Over Kosovo: Politics and Strategy in a Global Age (2001) includes a brief discussion of the series of US aerial attacks on Iraq that began with Operation Desert Fox in December 1998 and continued in 1999:

The best illustration of the postliberal civil-military relationship in action is the Clinton administration's other war of 1999, the yearlong bombing of Iraq. [He means it was the "other" war besides the Kosovo War.]

What war? In the administration's view, needless to say, the ongoing hostilities against Iraq, launched in December 1998 with a four-day air offensive known as Operation Desert Fox, failed to qualify as actual war. Indeed, the White House barely acknowledged that military action continued thereafter. This, despite the fact that, in the twelve months after Desert Fox, U.S. and British warplanes unloaded nearly 2,000 missiles and precision-guided bombs against several hundred targets scattered throughout Iraq.

According to administration officials, the aim of U.S. policy was to contain Iraq and prevent it from acquiring weapons of mass destruction, while ultimately removing Saddam Hussein from power. [my emphasis in bold]

Bacevich's particular point in that essay focused on how the bombing of Iraq proceeded with little public and Congressional notice, much less criticism or debate.

Links to analyses by Tony Cordesman on Desert Fox:

The Military Effectiveness Of Desert Fox: A Warning About the Limits of the Revolution in Military Affairs and Joint Vision 2010 by Anthony H. Cordesman (Center for Strategic and International Studies [CSIS]) 12/26/1998

The Military Effectiveness Of Desert Fox: A Warning About the Limits of the Revolution in Military Affairs and Joint Vision 2010 by Anthony H. Cordesman (Center for Strategic and International Studies [CSIS]) (labled 12/26/1998; CSIS Web site gives 01/31/1999

Iraq in Crisis: A History from Desert Fox to June 1999 by Anthony Cordesman (CSIS) 07/01/1999

The Air Defense War Since Desert Fox: A Short History by Anthony Cordesman (CSIS) 07/01/1999

The Lessons of Desert Fox: A Preliminary Analysis by Anthony Cordesman (CSIS) 02/16/1999

Tags: andrew bacevich, kosovo war