At the inception of the Coalition air war against Iraq in the 1990-91 Gulf War, removal of Iraqi forces from Kuwait was the primary motive for the Allied campaign. Such a campaign was not launched purely to prevent an Iraqi atomic bomb. Therefore, as part of a much wider effort to defeat the Iraqi forces, there was also a very concerted effort to destroy Iraq's WMD in order to protect allied troops and territory, as well as to remove a future threat to the stability and peace of the region. This was the first time that anyone had deliberately attacked a nuclear reactor while it was in operation.
Air power needs to be augmented by ground power.
In total, the Coalition mounted approximately 970 air strikes against NBC targets. Despite this, post-war surveys showed no evidence that Iraqi biological weapons were either destroyed or even found to exist. Further, the U.N. Special Commission teams uncovered some 150,000 chemical munitions that were untouched by the bombings. Finally, as stated, only two of twenty nuclear sites were even identified and targeted during the war. Unfortunately, there also was no great allied success in destroying Iraqi Scuds during Desert Storm.