Word: iraqi
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Ahmed Chalabi, a 54-year-old Iraqi businessman, has lived in exile for 26 years, but he keeps dreaming the same dream: as leader of the opposition to Saddam Hussein, he will persuade Washington to designate large swaths of Iraq as no-fly/no- drive zones, where U.S. air power will shelter a nascent anti-Saddam revolution. Inside these enclaves, Chalabi will build a guerrilla force financed by "liberated" Iraqi oil. One day, under the protection of U.S. warplanes, 10,000 fighters will march on Baghdad, slicing away pieces of Saddam's territory as their offensives persuade demoralized Iraqi army...
Clinton signed the measure on Oct. 31, the day Saddam booted out U.N. inspectors, but aides say the President had no intention of passing one rifle to the hodgepodge of weak Iraqi opposition groups. (The measure leaves Clinton full discretion on whether and how to spend the money.) The Pentagon and the CIA still consider the legislation foolhardy in trying to arm an opposition "with no there there...
...National Security Adviser Sandy Berger had been rushing around, thinking detail. Checking off extra bombing options. Tweaking instructions to the U.N. envoys. Fine-tuning the perfect strike against the Iraqi leader who has bedeviled the U.S. for eight long years...
...When the Iraqi master of brinkmanship let it be known that he would "unconditionally" allow the U.N. 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...
Those clarifications came overnight Saturday. While Pentagon planners revved up military forces for a possible Sunday strike, the White House engaged in a diplomatic marathon, trying to finalize an Iraqi commitment to unlimited and unfettered inspections. Early in the morning, in a final letter to the U.N., Baghdad abandoned the last of its conditions, and Clinton warily told the military to stand down. In a Sunday morning press conference, the President (who confessed he hadn't had much sleep) called the result a win: "Our willingness to strike produced the outcome we preferred." But he also made it clear that...