Word: blunderer
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...frequent allusions in the West to Saddam's "paranoia" thus make his behavior seem more complicated than it really is. He does not have to fantasize enemies; he has inherited and made enough to last several lifetimes. His invasion of Iran in 1980 is often cited as a headstrong blunder. True, Saddam could not have foreseen the initial defeats and the debilitating eight- year war that would follow. But hindsight suggests that he would probably have provoked Iran into battle even if he had known all the consequences at the outset. From his point of view, the alternative was worse...
Perhaps the most vulnerable of the abandoned people were the mentally ill, who moved through the cities like a great muttering army, foraging, frightening, fearful. In a stunning social blunder, patients were released from public institutions and given no place to go -- no halfway houses, no local clinics, no community care. Between 1960 and 1984, the population in mental institutions fell from 544,000 to 134,000. But deinstitutionalization alone did not create the homeless problem. Many released patients survived for a time in single-room-occupancy hotels, where they at least had a fixed address and could receive monthly...
Anyone can make a mistake. But when it sabotages a $1.5 billion project, the blunder is not easily forgiven. And when evidence of the mistake is repeatedly ignored until it is too late to fix the problem, then the episode becomes scandalous...
Indeed, in the present case of Iraq, this confusion has led to a major blunder. The State Department refused to condemn Saddam Hussein time and again, possibly giving Saddam the impression that the U.S. would not move to stop an invasion of Kuwait...
That was the only blunder Reilly would make. The junior netminder chalked up 11 saves on the day, scrambling to thwart a fiesty Bruin attack...