Word: baathist
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...regime on many Iraqis. Their deaths mark the sharpest signal yet that Saddam isn't coming back, and that he will eventually be found by the Americans. And that message will boost the confidence of those Iraqis inclined to work with the occupation authority, while demoralizing Baathist resistance fighters by eliminating two of their key political leaders and warning them that the capability of U.S. intelligence to detect Baathist leaders is growing. Equally important, it will provide an important morale-booster to U.S. troops straining under the weight of an often thankless mission...
...their own attacks. Sabotage attacks on oil pipelines reveal an acute awareness of Iraq's points of vulnerability, while Wednesday's firefights that killed six and wounded eight British troops mark an even more worrisome development. While attacks on U.S. forces had been mostly confined to the Sunni Baathist heartland, the Britons were attacked in the overwhelmingly Shiite region around Basra. It could be that such attacks were mounted by the same largely Sunni groups that are harassing U.S. forces in Baghdad and to the north - after all, Saddam's (mostly Sunni) Fedayeen were active as far south as Basra...
...condemned the Sunni insurgency, denouncing it as "premature" and urging their followers instead to press peacefully for an early U.S. departure. As much as they chafe against the idea of a long-term U.S. occupation, the Shiites are unlikely to make common cause with a rebellion by the same Baathists that had routinely butchered previous Shiite uprisings. Without the support of the Shiites and the Kurds, the rebellion has a decidedly low ceiling - it can harass the U.S. forces and make their stay uncomfortable and costly, but it is unlikely ever to muster the national challenge that confronted...
...international airport last week, a twisted heap that had once been an Army humvee sat on the highway. Crouched behind a metal guardrail, an Iraqi had triggered a trip wire, detonating a charge. One American was killed. "The only person who knows how to do that is the Iraqi Baathist army," concludes a U.S. naval intelligence officer attached to ORHA. "And they are thinking right now, F___ the Americans; we'll gravitate toward the radicals...
...backed Iraqi National Congress are challenging Bremer's plan to elect a 35-member consultative body to advise him on political decisions, and have threatened to hold their national assembly in defiance of his edicts. But managing the competing claims of rival Iraqi groups amid mounting tension, fighting the Baathist holdouts while working to restore security and basic services are now part of the administration's daily agenda in Iraq...