Word: baathist
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...were the Kurds Saddam's only new victims. While civilians throughout Iraq struggled to replace shattered power plants and water lines -- not to mention scrounging for food -- the regime also threw its energy into smashing the Shi'ites in the south who want Saddam's secular Baathist regime replaced by Islamic rule. In the five weeks since the liberation of Kuwait, Baghdad has retaken every major rebel-held city and town, sometimes with terrifying vindictiveness...
Born in 1940 in Saddam's hometown of Tikrit, Majid began his career in the Baath Party's internal-security branch, whimsically called the Instrument of Yearning. Its reputation for rough torture made it the most feared organization in Iraq. Grateful for Majid's help in ridding him of Baathist rivals, Saddam made him Minister of Municipalities. But his real job was to be Saddam's No. 1 enforcer...
...hopeful scenario, from the West's vantage point, was that the chaos would provoke the army, or perhaps one of Saddam's Baathist associates, to grab power. "At some point," says a Bush Administration official, "somebody is going to say, 'The country is coming apart, and we have to put a stop to it.' And the way to do that is to remove Saddam himself." His would-be deposer, however, may have to move fast, while there is still a country...
...inside Iraq. Frequently accused of violating the trade embargo against Baghdad in the run-up to the war, Iran last week announced openly that it would be sending food and medicine to Iraqi noncombatants, as is permitted under U.N. guidelines. Both countries have Shi'ite Muslim majorities, though the Baathist government of Saddam Hussein is dominated by Sunni Muslims. Tehran's ultimate goal, some analysts say, is to foment a takeover by Baghdad's Shi'ites. If the day ever comes that friendly Shi'ites do control Iraq, Iran might offer the new government a generous gift...
...ruling Baath Party had purged almost all non-Baathist officers from the army during the 1970s. As a result, the officer corps stopped seeing itself as the defender of a national entity known as Iraq and began to see its mission as the preservation of the party and its leader, Saddam Hussein. By 1980, a fifth of Iraq's work force was in the army, police or militia. The effect of Saddam's policies was to turn the country into an ideologically motivated military machine. Rumors of coups and plots within the military had no significant result on the conduct...