Word: iraqis
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...remove Saddam Hussein from power, mass destruction is not the most appropriate technique. The Gulf War caused significant Iraqi losses, but Hussein remains in office. Some commentators have suggested that the U.S. support an internal rebellion in Iraq and use domestic divisions to bring about a change in leadership. The examples of American involvement in Afghanistan and in Nicaragua indicate that Washington is familiar with using civil war to pursue its policy ends...
Some advocates for air raids believe that bombing will worsen conditions in Iraq to the point that the Iraqi people will rebel. Statistics, however, show that the Iraqi situation could hardly get worse than it is now. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization reports that sanctions have led to the deaths of more than 560,000 Iraqi children--a total greater than the death toll of Bosnian genocide. In a country of 20 million, 1 million have died since 1990. The truth of the matter is that suffering caused by bombing will only add to already overwhelming misery. Bombing Iraq...
...readiness and enthusiasm with which some Americans approach the decision to bomb is linked to the disparity in human cost on the U.S. and Iraqi sides of the conflict. The Gulf War and its televised missile operations gave us an impression that the conflict was costless. For the Iraqis, however, it was not. If American losses were expected to be on par with Iraqi casualties, it can safely be said that we in the U.S. would not be so eager to attack...
Even the most ardent Saddam hunters have to admit that taking him out would entail a huge, high-risk military operation: months of preparation to deploy thousands of ground troops to fight their way to the Iraqi capital while courting substantial casualties, then arrest or kill him. The U.S. would be pitched into an open-ended occupation and saddled with rescuing a devastated economy...
...then what? Advocates suggest there is a palatable alternative to Saddam just waiting to step in. In fact, all efforts to organize an effective Iraqi opposition have failed. There is a good chance Saddam would be replaced by Saddam II, another Baathist general ready to continue the military dictatorship. More likely still, a headless Iraq would go the way of Lebanon, fractured among Kurds in the north, Shi'ites in the south and Sunnis in the center egged on by meddling neighbor states pursuing oil and ethnic interests...