“On 16 December, 1998 [President Bill] Clinton ordered large-scale air strikes against Iraq, aimed not only at weapons sites but at the heart of the regime’s security and military apparatus. Operation Desert Fox was designed not only to punish the regime for non-cooperation with UNSCOM [United Nations Special Commission, the inspection group that searched for WMD] but also to create the conditions for the regime’s overthrow. For the first time since the end of the Gulf War, the USA took specific military measures to undermine the regime of Saddam Hussein, and to encourage elements from inside Iraq to rise up and topple the Ba’ath party from power. The weapons inspection programme had been effectively terminated.”
– Ali A. Allawi, The Occupation of Iraq, Page 71