Word: iraq
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...left in the area, less than a tenth of those that flew in Desert Storm, and some of those operate out of Incirlik in Turkey. The Turks might never let them take off. Ankara's top priority is to prevent formation of anything resembling an independent Kurdish state inside Iraq that inevitably would try to break off a piece of Turkey; Turkish troops already have exchanged fire with Turkish Kurd + guerrillas operating out of Iraq...
Fomenting a military coup against Saddam seems a slightly more promising option. Some of the dictator's officers regard him as a bungler who has brought disaster on Iraq; British intelligence in fact hears there have been three unsuccessful coup attempts since the end of the gulf war. Americans add that Saddam has had 80-odd officers executed, and there are stories of gun battles in the streets of Baghdad between supporters of an ousted intelligence chief and followers of his successor...
...most favorable case, which an American official describes as "two officers walking into Saddam's office and putting a bullet in his head." They might be bullies only slightly less obnoxious than the dictator himself; Saddam's inner circle is not exactly crawling with liberal democratic reformers. Minus Saddam, Iraq would have a better chance of getting out from under intrusive U.N. sanctions, building the nuclear weapons that Saddam got close to, and becoming a regional menace once more...
...sign that the consumer society of the Persian Gulf city-state has been restored to prosperity. The pace of reconstruction has been stunningly rapid. Essential services have been resumed; most government buildings have been repaired; ports have reopened. The debris-and-body-choked "Highway of Death" leading north toward Iraq has been cleared and opened to civilian traffic. Supermarket shelves are restocked with imported gourmet delicacies, and shops sell the latest fashions...
Kuwait's five-star hotels were targeted for destruction by Iraq's defeated army; now most are back in business. The eighth floor of the 406-room International Hotel was set aflame, but employees prevented the fire from engulfing the building. Hermann Simon, the Austrian general manager of the International, hands out Iraqi cartridge shells as souvenirs. "Only an Iraqi burns a hotel from the top," he says. "That's why we are still in business...