What many also fail to remember is that we were maintaining no-fly zones over Northern and Southern Iraq, which was costing us over $8 billion a year. I was able to see the operation firsthand during a visit to the region. The great fear was that one of our planes would be shot down and the pilot used by Saddam for propaganda reasons. We had been maintaining those NFZs for over 10 years, i.e., 1992 to 2003.
