Word: ite
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...their categorical dismissal of the Times report, since there was a secret scheme to attack Saddam if the U.N. team's mission had ended in failure. A few days later, the allies announced plans to carve out a security zone in southern Iraq, home of a persistent Shi'ite insurgency, that would be off limits to Saddam's combat aircraft. "We are not doing this for no good reason," British Prime Minister John Major explained. "It's happening because there is clear evidence now of the systematic murder, genocide, of the Shi'ites...
...push he did. Early in the year, he deployed 15 divisions along the internal border with the Kurdish-held north. More recently he reportedly stepped up attacks on the Shi'ite south, draining wells and defoliating the marshlands to target rebel enclaves better. Saddam also thumbed his nose at the international community, impeding the work of U.N. inspection teams, blocking aid convoys and attacking U.N. guards...
They will not -- probably cannot -- do it for Slavic Muslims in Bosnia. But the U.S. and its European allies are prepared to give air protection to Shi'ite Muslims in Iraq. The U.S., France and Britain, having mobilized a force of 200 aircraft and 19 navy ships, have agreed to declare a "no-fly zone" across the southern third of the country. The force is to fly reconnaissance missions over a marshy region where Western officials say Saddam Hussein pursues a policy of genocide against opponents of his regime. The goal will be to close the sky to Iraqi flights...
...allied action was prompted by evidence that 70 Iraqi combat aircraft were being used to attack Shi'ite villages and rebel camps in the swamps and islands in the Basra region, where the Tigris and Euphrates rivers empty into the gulf. That violates a U.N. resolution, passed after the Gulf War, prohibiting Saddam's "repression" of his own people. A similar protection zone has been in effect in northern Kurdish regions since April...
Baghdad's compromise left the U.S. without a clear policy for getting Saddam to observe the cease-fire that he has been violating for months in ways large and small. Among the largest has been his mounting assault on Shi'ite rebels in southern Iraq. As one countermove, Secretary of State James Baker met in Washington with leaders of the Iraqi opposition. At the U.N., Britain, France and the U.S. are drawing up a new resolution to authorize force if the Shi'ite crackdown is not stopped...