Word: iraqi
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Iraqi war plan apparently hinged on seizing enough Iranian territory in an initial strike to use as a bargaining chip in its efforts to regain sovereignty over the Shatt al Arab, which it had agreed to share with Iran in a 1975 agreement with the Shah. Perhaps for that reason, President Saddam Hussein not only responded favorably to a U.N. Security Council vote calling for an end to hostilities, but also issued his own "unilateral" offer of a four-day ceasefire. Iranian President Abolhassan Banisadr replied to the U.N. plea with a scornful insistence that his country would not consider...
...even escalate into a confrontation between the superpowers. Responding to Saudi Arabia's fears of possible spillover attacks against Middle East oilfields, the U.S. lent Riyadh four AWAC (Airborne Warning and Control System) electronic-surveillance planes. Mindful that Iran might misinterpret the gesture as an act of pro-Iraqi collusion, Muskie wrote a letter to Banisadr re-emphasizing U.S. neutrality. Indeed, Iran promptly denounced the action as "provocative." As usual, it did not help the hostage problem. Iran's parliament, the Majlis, put a seven-member commission of hard-liners in charge of the hostage question and also...
...Iraqi side, the government's radio and television sustained a comparable campaign of martial enthusiasm. Like Khomeini, President Saddam Hussein went on television to address his nation in his field marshal's uniform. "Our army has reached its goals," Saddam boasted. "The time is over," he said, "when Iran acted as watchdog of the gulf. We are the swords of the Arab people." Yet, in some passages, the address was curiously low-keyed and Saddam otherwise displayed little of his usual bravado. At times his voice quaked as he sipped nervously from a glass of water...
...also a fact that food and fuel supplies were running short in some Iraqi cities. The nightly blackouts made a flashlight a precious commodity. Baghdad experienced repeated power failures as a result of the Iranian bombings. Said a doctor in Basra: "Last week our lives were not too affected, and most people thought of this as a just and honorable war that was even kind of exhilarating. Now we are starting to find out about the hard times it can bring...
...Iraqi military authorities suddenly limited the war zone to visiting journalists last week. Though there was no official explanation, the motive seemed obvious: in the space of little more than a week, an apparently unstoppable Iraqi advance had, in fact, been halted and transformed into a stalemate in which the Iranians were more than holding their own. Before the ban, TIME Correspondent William Drozdiak was able to catch the change in the war firsthand in repeated visits to Basra, and near Khorramshahr in occupied Iran. His report...