President Bush on his first foreign trip meets with President Fox in San Cristobal, Mexico, is completely surprised when the United States carries out airstrikes in Iraq.
In the “first airstrikes” of the Bush administration, 24 U.S. and U.K. aircraft strike Iraqi targets near Baghdad in one of the largest “response options” since Desert Fox. The Bush White House is completely unaware of the pre-planned operation or the rules of engagement that precipitated the attacks. The attacks take place outside the no-fly zones.
Queried by the White House, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is livid because he feels he hadn’t been given enough information about the strikes. “I’m the secretary of defense. I’m in the chain of command,” Rumsfeld complains, later taking permission to grant such strikes away from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs (Gen. Hugh Shelton) and placing it under his authority.
CNN reports that it looked for a moment if the U.S. had just declared unilateral war on Iraq, and for Iraq, the shift on air strikes in response to Iraq’s firing on no-fly zone patrol aircraft had already started. First, the ROE’s had changed to allow aircraft to “retaliate” not in direct response to missile and anti-aircraft artillery firings but to “bank” such responses, to attack later. And second, targeters were allowed to choose Iraqi air defense and command and control targets of the integrated air defense system (and not just the locations where Iraqi attacks originated from).
On Fox News, Bill O’Reilly tells his listeners, “You know, I don’t take Saddam Hussein all that seriously anymore as far as a world threat. Maybe I’m wrong and naive here. Should we be very frightened of this guy?”
President Bush, upon recovering from his surprise and anger, eventually says that the purpose of the strikes were: “to send a clear signal to Saddam.”
Day: February 16, 2021