Word: iraq
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...light to rebuild his terror arsenal. "We know he'll threaten his neighbors again with reconstituted weapons of mass destruction," said Berger, and the U.S. would have ceded its power to stop him. R.I.P. to American global credibility. The second question is trickier: if the biggest air strike against Iraq since the end of the Gulf War doesn't bludgeon Saddam into resuming inspections, all formal restraints on his weapon building are still gone, and the U.S. is committed to an endless repetition of attacks to keep Iraq in check: arms control by bombing. Very expensive, politically formidable to sustain...
...inspectors to return to their work of prying into suspected stockpiles of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons, he threw into confusion the best-laid American plans for military action against him. On the surface, the letter dispatched to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan appeared to fulfill U.S. demands that Iraq let unfettered inspections resume immediately. But it came with a two-page annex listing nine items Iraq wanted in return, which Saddam dubbed "positions" but the U.S. called unacceptable "conditions." The approval--and global sigh of relief--that initially greeted Saddam's backdown soured into fresh anxiety. Annan...
...Saddam just ducks and ignores 'em. Even as Clinton last week charted a sustained bombing campaign that one offiCIAl likened to a "slow, soaking rain," no one suggested that it would rid the world of Saddam. The goal of the strikes was more modest and less satisfying: to "degrade" Iraq's ability to make and deploy weapons of mass destruction, temporarily at best. Maybe to club Saddam into some cooperation with the inspections regime. Certainly to punish him. But not to solve the Saddam problem for good...
Attack or no attack, Saddam has succeeded again in one thing he wanted: to call attention to Iraq's complaint that eight years of inspections and sanctions are enough. He is not alone in the belief that Iraq's innocent civilians have suffered too much, too long. While the U.S. can brush aside his letter's nine points for now as so much Swiss cheese, the issues they raise lie at the heart of the tug-of-war. Iraq says it has largely complied with disarmament demands; the U.S. insists that Saddam is hiding stockpiles of germ weapons...
...suspended Israeli troop withdrawals from the West Bank until Yasser Arafat drops his long-standing plan to declare a Palestinian state next May. Netanyahu had found a number of reasons to delay implementation of the deal over the past month, but Washington's need for Arab support on the Iraq crisis -- articulated by President Clinton in a Tuesday-night phone call to Netanyahu -- created the pressure for him to secure the necessary cabinet vote last Wednesday...