The aim of the bombing was to disable military and security targets which may have enabled Iraq to produce, store, maintain, and deliver weapons of mass destruction.

[2] Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates initially announced they would deny the U.S. military the use of local bases for the purpose of air strikes against Iraq.

U.S. President Bill Clinton had been working under a regional security framework of dual containment, which involved utilizing military force when Iraq challenged the United States or the international community.

U.S. Navy aircraft from Carrier Air Wing Three, flying from the USS Enterprise, and Patrol Squadron Four flew combat missions from the Persian Gulf in support of ODF.

On the second night of Operation Desert Fox, 12 B-52s took off from the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean and launched a barrage of conventional air-launched cruise missiles (CALCMs).

The missiles successfully struck multiple Iraqi targets, including six of President Saddam Hussein's palaces, several Republican Guard barracks, and the Ministries of Defense and Military Industry.

However, on 5 January 1999, American General Harry Shelton told the U.S. Senate that the strikes killed or wounded an estimated 1,400 members of Iraq's Republican Guard.

[14] In reaction to the attack, three of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (Russia, France, and the People's Republic of China) called for the lifting of the eight-year oil embargo on Iraq, the reorganizing or disbanding of the United Nations Special Commission, and the firing of its chairman, Australian diplomat Richard Butler.

[16] He told BBC Panorama in 2004 that Defence Intelligence Staff in Whitehall did not have a high degree of confidence any of the facilities bombed in Operation Desert Fox were active in producing weapons of mass destruction.

"After Desert Fox, I actually sent a note round to all the analysts involved congratulating them on standing firm in the face of, in some cases, individual pressure to say things that they knew weren't true".

[19][20][page needed] The four-day bombing campaign occurred at the same time the U.S. House of Representatives was conducting the impeachment hearing of President Clinton.

A few months earlier, similar criticism was levelled during Operation Infinite Reach, wherein missile strikes were ordered against suspected terrorist bases in Sudan and Afghanistan on 20 August.

"[22] Gen. Peter de la Billiere, a former head of the SAS who commanded British forces in the 1991 Gulf war, questioned the political impact of the bombing campaign, saying aerial bombardments were not effective in driving people into submission, but tend to make them more defiant.