There is surprisingly little public and political interest in the continuing military campaign in Iraq. Royal Air Force aircraft patrol the skies over Iraq every week, and are shot at on a regular basis. In an answer to a written question in the House of Commons (8 Nov 2000), Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary,detailed the statistics for the last six months. The US and UK forces had been directly threatened on 55 occasions, and had responded with some 60 tons of munitions against the air defence systems.
The intensity of this kind of conflict is not particularly high, but it has been prolonged. How did we become involved in this forgotten war? After the Gulf War of 1991, Saddam Hussein took repressive measures against the Kurdish population in the North, and the Shia population in Southern Iraq. Air exclusion zones were established over North and South Iraq to prevent his military from using air power to repress these minorities. These zones were patrolled without great difficulty until Operation Desert Fox in December 1998. This was the operation conducted by US and UK air forces to destroy Iraq's weapons of mass destruction facilities. Since then, Iraq has regularly threatened and fired at the Allied air patrols. The US and UK retaliate with attacks on air defence infrastructure.
The UK combat commitment is some 14 Tornado aircraft (8 bombers and 6 fighters) for the Southern zone, and some 4 Jaguar aircraft for the Northern zone. Since the end of 1998, the RAF have launched some 150 laser guided bombs. For comparison, the Kosovo air campaign saw them drop some 250 such bombs over a much shorter period.
There is no policy rationale for stopping this operation while the Saddam Hussein regime remains a threat to the Kurd and Shia minorities. However, as the months go by, the total combat activity approaches that of Kosovo. Western policy-makers (and our aircrew) must hope that the Iraqi air defences do not get lucky.