WASHINGTON -- The United States attacked Iraq last night with more than 100 cruise missiles and dozens of Navy aircraft, saying Baghdad had blocked United Nations inspections to the point where only military force could blunt Iraq's threat to the region.
The attack, called Operation Desert Fox, were expected to last up to four days.
President Clinton said he had decided to launch the strikes to protect the national interest after Iraq showed it was determined to menace the Persian Gulf region with weapons of mass destruction.
He said the airstrikes would "degrade" Baghdad's ability to produce and deliver chemical and biological weapons.
Yesterday, the president and his advisers all but declared an end to the seven-year effort to disarm Iraq through U.N. inspections, because the U.N. Special Commission has been blocked from seriously carrying out its searches.
When Clinton called off an attack against Iraq last month, he said that if he had gone ahead it would have meant the end of the UNSCOM inspection program. Last night he said, "Even if they could stay in Iraq, their work would be a sham."
There were no early reports of U.S. casualties in last night's raids. Doctors at a Baghdad hospital said today that two people had died and 30 were wounded in the attacks.
Information Ministry officials took journalists to a site where they said a missile or bomb had struck in the middle of a road in a residential and shopping area, leaving a deep crater and flooding the street for hundreds of yards.
In a televised speech from the Oval Office, Clinton said, "Saddam Hussein and the other enemies of peace may have thought that the serious debate currently before the House of Representatives would distract Americans, weaken our resolve to face them down."
"But once more, the United States has proven that although we are never eager to use force, when we must act in America's vital interests we will do so."
The attack's timing, one day before the House was to vote on whether to impeach Clinton, drew widespread suspicion that the president was acting to forestall impeachment and try to save his job.
In a Cable News Network interview, Vice President Al Gore appealed for public support for Operation Desert Fox, saying, "We need national resolve and unity, not weakness and division, when we are engaged in an action against someone like Saddam Hussein."
5 p.m. launch
Military officials said the attacks began at 5 p.m. EST yesterday (1 a.m. today in Baghdad) with Tomahawk missiles fired from Navy ships and followed up by dozens of attack aircraft from the carrier USS Enterprise, including F-14 Tomcats and F-18 Hornets.
Baghdad was rocked by the sound of air raid sirens and Iraqi anti-aircraft and anti-missile launches a few minutes after the U.S. attacks began.
Today, the Air Force will send B-52 Stratofortresses toward Iraq, from a base in the Indian Ocean, armed with cruise missiles that can be fired from 1,500 miles away.
Clinton said the purpose of a "strong, sustained series of airstrikes" was to "attack Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and its military capacity to threaten its neighbors."
In contrast to a similar crisis a month ago, when his top aides were sharply split over whether to proceed with a planned attack, Clinton stressed that this time his national security advisers were united in support of his decision to act.
Television images from Baghdad showed the flickering and boom of anti-aircraft fire, but there was no immediate footage of the destruction. U. S. officials would not say precisely where they had aimed.
Defiantly addressing fellow Iraqis, Hussein said, "On this day and on this night and as we have expected and as they had done eight years ago, the despicable aggressors bombed a number of targets in your great Iraq thinking that they would defeat your great will.
"We know what angers you is not their aggression but because they are not fighting you face to face, relying on their high technology, which is in no way a measure of bravery."
The administration was intent on beginning the attacks before the start this weekend of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month of fasting.
"For us to initiate military action during Ramadan would be profoundly offensive to the Muslim world and, therefore, would damage our relations with Arab countries and the progress we have made in the Middle East," Clinton said.
But Pentagon sources said the bombing campaign is expected to last four days, meaning it might spill over into the start of Ramadan on Sunday.
The aim is to degrade Iraq's ability to produce chemical and biological weaponry and the missiles that can carry them, said Defense Secretary William S. Cohen and Gen. Henry H. Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
"We intend to continue the mission until such time as we carry out our objectives," Cohen said.
'Carefully selected' targets
Shelton said the "carefully selected" targets would be aimed at production, security and transport facilities for chemical and biological weapons, which the Iraqi leader has barred inspectors from seeing.
Said Cohen, "The world knows it cannot trust Saddam Hussein." said said the bombing would be "serious and sustained" and continue until all the targets have been hit, adding, "We have acted."
Cohen and Shelton declined to specify the number of target sites, the specific forces used or how long the attack would last, saying officials would offer more information at the "appropriate time." Cohen said there were no U.S. casualties, and he was uncertain of any Iraqi wounded or dead.
He added: "We have tried to minimize civilian casualties. We won't know exactly what will occur until the operation is over."
Pentagon sources said Hussein's elite troops, the Republican Guard, also were among the targets. Clinton said one of the reasons the United States decided to act quickly was that some Iraqi troops were dispersing.
The airstrikes are the first major military strike against Iraq since September 1996, when the United States fired cruise missiles at Iraqi anti-missile sites in southern Iraq to punish the Iraqi military for venturing into the Kurdish "safe haven" in northern Iraq.
Clinton had abruptly aborted a similar series of airstrikes a month ago after Hussein pledged to cooperate fully with U.N. weapons inspectors. With U.S. aircraft poised to strike Iraq at that time, Iraq promised to grant the inspectors unfettered access.
That pledge led to a three-week series of inspections aimed at testing Iraq's willingness to cooperate.
On Tuesday, Richard Butler, the chief U.N. weapons inspector, delivered a report concluding that Iraqi obstruction had prevented his team from making any progress. He cited five instances of obstruction and said Iraq had withheld documents sought by inspectors.
After finishing the report, Butler signaled imminent military strikes by ordering his 120 inspectors to leave Iraq and thus prevent Hussein's regime from using them as human shields against U.S. attacks.
His sudden decision produced a furious reaction from Chinese and Russian diplomats, who have been able to use deft maneuvers to head off U.S. military action.
At Russia's request, the U.N. Security Council began an emergency meeting on the Iraq crisis last night. Officials from about a dozen countries were listed to speak in the formal debate. Included was Iraq, which is not a member of the 15-nation council. No resolution was expected to be adopted.
Beyond the immediate crisis over weapons inspectors, the attack was propelled by a larger need to preserve the credibility of U.S. military threats.
After years of moving to the brink of military conflict in the face of Iraq's cat-and-mouse, cheat-and-retreat games with weapons inspectors, a month after ordering and then aborting airstrikes, and after making clear threats of military action if Iraqi defiance persisted, the administration said it had no choice but to follow through.
"The United States did not go looking for this fight," Albright said last night.
In Baghdad, a joint meeting of the decision-making Revolutionary Command Council and the ruling Baath Party issued a zTC statement, saying Iraqis can "depend on God to knock the dreams out of [the] empty heads" of the United States and Britain.
Pub Date: 12/17/98