Category: War, from Wikidata’s class “military operation”
1998 bombing of Iraq
Part of: Iraqi no-fly zones conflict Wikidata
Wikidata classes on our event-class list: military operation (all its classes: Wikidata item)
The 1998 bombing of Iraq (code-named Operation Desert Fox) was a major bombing campaign against Iraqi targets, from 16 to 19 December 1998, by the United States and the United Kingdom. On 16 December 1998, U.S. President Bill Clinton announced that he had ordered strikes against Iraq. The strikes were launched due to Iraq's failure to comply with United Nations Security Council resolutions and its interference with United Nations inspectors that were searching for potential weapons of mass destruction. The inspectors had been sent to Iraq beginning in 1991 and were repeatedly refused access to certain sites.
The operation was a major flare-up in the Iraq disarmament crisis as it involved a direct attack on Iraq. 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. The bombing campaign had been anticipated earlier in the year and faced criticism both in the U.S. and from members of the international community. 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.
The bombing was criticized by Clinton's detractors, who accused him of using the bombing to direct attention away from the ongoing impeachment proceedings he was facing.
Text retrieved 2026-09-26 from Wikipedia.
Cite this
The link is the Wikipedia revision of August 28, 2026 (revision 1371844510), whose lead is exactly the text shown here.
APA 7
1998 bombing of Iraq. (2026, August 28). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=1998_bombing_of_Iraq&oldid=1371844510
MLA 9
“1998 bombing of Iraq.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 28 Aug. 2026, en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=1998_bombing_of_Iraq&oldid=1371844510.
Chicago (note)
Wikipedia, “1998 bombing of Iraq,” last modified August 28, 2026, 20:47 (UTC), https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=1998_bombing_of_Iraq&oldid=1371844510.
Chicago (shortened note)
Wikipedia, “1998 bombing of Iraq.”
Chicago cites well-known reference works such as Wikipedia in notes only, not in the bibliography.
This event on Middle East, 1900–present: https://middleeast.events/event/1998-bombing-of-iraq
If you use the map’s borders: CShapes 2.0 - historical country borders. Schvitz, G., et al. (2022). CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. https://icr.ethz.ch/data/cshapes/ (modified by middleeast.events); West Bank Areas A/B/C: UN OCHA / HDX "Oslo Agreement" Areas A/B/C (West Bank). Distributed under the legacy HumanitarianResponse.info terms: non-commercial use with credit to UN OCHA. https://data.humdata.org/dataset/state-of-palestine-other-0-0-0-0-0; some corrected border points: GeoNames - CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). https://www.geonames.org/
No map location: Wikipedia and Wikidata give no coordinates for this event, so it has no marker on the map.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 by Wikipedia contributors, from the article 1998 bombing of Iraq. Classes are Wikidata’s labels (CC0). “Part of” is Wikidata’s statement, in its labels (CC0).