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To: wagglebee
In December 1998, Clinton launched Operation Desert Fox against Iraq. The air attacks against suspected WMD factories and storage facilities grabbed headlines, but in the end, never produced hard evidence that any illegal weapons had been destroyed.

That bombing took off a corner of a roof that exposed Iraqi drones. That's hard evidence that Iraq was thumbing its nose at the UN and developing these drones. I don't know if we went back and destroyed that building and its contents or not, but Desert Fox did reveal that they were hidden there.

It was also around just before that operation when the Iraqi enrichment centrifuge was found stashed in Jordanian territory, as I recall.

8 posted on 10/07/2004 8:43:51 PM PDT by piasa (Attitude Adjustments Offered Here Free of Charge)
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To: piasa

It was also in response to Operation Desert Fox that Iraq strengthened its alliance with Al Qaeda and began co-planning a major counter-offensive against the US--Bodansky's "Bin Laden" gets into this.

Apart from that, this article raises a lot of interesting questions, more than it answers for me. It mentions "Butler, known for his repeated clashes with Iraq officials, was eventually forced out of his U.N. job by the French and Russian ambassadors in June 1999. . .Eventually, the Russians and French, looking to
resume business ties with the Iraqis, forced Butler to the sidelines." Did Russian and French business interests have anything to do with UNSCOM privately coming to "the conclusion that what else may still remain was not of 'signifcant' consequence"? Did this in turn have anything to do with the fact that "National Security Adviser Sandy Berger was known to be 'uncomfortable' with
Butler"? If the reason for Clinton getting rid of Butler was "Butler's aggressive attitude. . .ran contrary to the Clinton White House policy to 'get rid of Saddam Hussein'", then why is it that "With Butler gone, Clinton and Albright decided to push the Iraq weapons issue to the back-burner"? Some pieces of the puzzle are missing here.


17 posted on 10/07/2004 11:08:22 PM PDT by Fedora
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