Word: iraq
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...might have been a Thousand and One Nights romance, that is, had this story not played out last week--as fully modern Middle East politics, in deadly earnest and to spectacular international effect. For the Baghdad caliphate, read Saddam Hussein's Iraq; as the fugitives' vehicles, replace camels with Land Rovers and Mercedes sedans; and, in lieu of swords, understand the fleeing armorer's specialty as ballistic missiles, warheads and lethal toxins. Whatever the reasons for it, the overland escape into Jordan by Lieut. General Hussein Kamel al-Majid, his brother and their wives--both daughters of Saddam's--resounded...
...want to deal--or to be seen dealing--with the West. In any case, neither fits anyone's idea of a flower-power liberal. They rose by nepotism, survived by cunning and thrived by doing their leader's most morally questionable will. However quickly Saddam might replace them, though, Iraq's slow strangulation under U.N. economic sanctions since 1990 continues to make life hard for the strongman's subjects. If his relatives' flight was not fatal, it at least displayed publicly some crucial flaws. Said Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon: "It's clearly a vote of no confidence in Saddam Hussein...
...case, Hussein Kamel apparently did not leave Iraq empty-handed. The first Jordanian official reports that the general, before the flight with his brother, their wives, assorted Saddam grandchildren and 15 army officers, had brought out $50 million. How did he clear the Iraqi checkpoint? An Arab ambassador based in Baghdad replied wryly, "If you're Hussein al-Majid and you're driving to Jordan, you can bring out not only $50 million but $5 billion and no one will search you." Baghdad later accused the "traitor dwarf" of stealing public funds...
...with Hussein Kamel about a year ago when the Iraqi commander underwent surgery in Amman for the removal of a noncancerous brain tumor. The King reportedly visited the hospital nearly every day, and the two hit it off. At the same time, it seems, the invalid's absence from Iraq presented a golden opportunity for Saddam's eldest son, Uday, 33, who has recently ascended in power and prestige...
...view of some Iraq watchers, Hussein Kamel, whose teeter-totter fortunes looked to be on the upswing again recently, has been advocating a more aboveboard treatment of U.N. monitors, whose job is to search out and police the destruction of Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. According to this line, the general, who in the first place had presided over the stockpiling of Iraq's most dangerous arsenals, argued that the sooner the regime comes clean, the quicker the country might resume oil exports and normal economic life. At bottom, though, the quarrel seems to have been over spoils...