Word: iraq
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...northern section of Iraq has been off limits to Saddam's forces since shortly after the end of the Persian Gulf War. That was when the U.S. and its allies established an enclave where the 4 million Kurds would be protected from Saddam. The Kurds rebelled against Baghdad at the end of the war, hoping the moment was ripe for them to set up an independent country. Iraqi forces were on their way to crushing the rebellion when the Western powers drew a line just south of Erbil and told Saddam not to cross...
...Massoud Barzani, the head of the K.D.P., turned to Saddam. As one Western diplomat put it, "The K.D.P. said they were on the verge of being wiped out by the P.U.K. with Iran's help. The Americans weren't coming in and stopping the fighting, so they turned to Iraq...
...security advisers first learned of the Iraqi buildup from spy-satellite photos. Washington immediately sent a blunt message to Iraqi officials at the U.N., saying it would be a "serious mistake" to move against the Kurds, but Saddam Hussein did not heed the warning. On Friday night Tariq Aziz, Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister, announced that a "limited military operation" had been undertaken in response to an appeal from the K.D.P. State Department officials confirmed that in some parts of the city, K.D.P. soldiers fought alongside Iraqi forces, and K.D.P. radio broadcasts also told people to turn in their weapons...
...alert," American jet fighters stepped up the number of sorties over Iraqi Kurdistan. Clinton also canceled a two-day campaign trip to Pennsylvania that was to have taken place early this week, but officials insisted he did so to rest his voice and not just to monitor events in Iraq...
...exact form of the Western reaction to Saddam Hussein is unclear. Said a Washington policymaker candidly on Saturday: "Right now we're trying to figure out what direction we should take." While the range of options includes military action either in northern Iraq or in the whole country, the White House prefers for the present to work on the diplomatic front. Saddam has been lobbying the international community, with some success, to loosen the U.N.'s economic sanctions against Iraq. The U.S. and other Western powers, though, are likely now to press even harder to maintain the sanctions. Being...