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MALAYSIAN DIPLOMATS: OUR STORIES

So back to our Christmas party on what would end up as a dreadful and
terrifying day. T e celebrations ended around 11.00 p.m. My wife was with
me and we were driving back to my residence when I thought of dropping
by at a petrol station. To my surprise the petrol station was crowded with
people, mostly Iraqis, who were there to f ll up their cars. I wondered to
myself why there were so many cars at that hour.

T e previous months had seen a mounting crisis in relations between the
UN weapons inspections body, UNSCOM, and the Iraqi regime. Iraq
had obstructed weapons inspectors, denying them access to the so-called
“presidential palaces” and refusing to cooperate.

I did not stay on for much longer as I sensed then that something terrible
was going to happen. We reached my residence which is situated at the Al-
Mansour district just before midnight. My two daughters, four and two
years old then, were fast asleep. At around 12.30 a.m., on 17 December, the
air-raid sirens screamed. I had never heard them before this and was already
feeling nervous and worried. T at was when it really hit me that we had to
brace for bomb attacks on Baghdad. Frankly speaking, we were not ready
for this. We were not expecting for Baghdad to be bombarded with missiles.
But the most frightening part was thinking of the possibility that the bombs
would also hit residential areas and innocent civilians like us.

Operation Desert Fox, as it was called, was ordered by the United States
(U.S.) together with its close ally United Kingdom because of what U.S.
President Clinton said of Iraq’s refusal to live up to its promise to allow
the United Nations to conduct on-site inspections for weapons of mass
destruction. T e timing, he insisted, was a strategic decision based on a
report delivered earlier by Richard Butler, Chairman of the United Nations
Special Commission, overseeing the disarmament. T e White House then
ordered UNSCOM inspectors to withdraw from Iraq. What was to follow
soon after that was totally unexpected although the U.S. administration
knew exactly what would happen and what they needed to do.

T e missile strikes began around 1 a.m. and lasted for four nights until 20
December. U.S. and British forces launched a f erce aerial attack on Iraq,
sending waves of missiles and planes on deadly sorties. I switched on my

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