Word: ite
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...young Iraqi Shi'ite walks up to you in the Yard and asks how you feel about the Gulf War. Once reminded of what he is talking about, you look back at the events of the winter of 1991 and begin to sense a growing uneasiness about the whole damn affair...
Today, however, things are looking grim. Saddam Hussein's forces have crushed most of the Shi'ite and Kurdish bellions with brutal force (including, of course, chemical weapons, at the cost of thousands of lives). Once solidly restored to his former control, it would be naive to expect Saddam to refrain from purchasing arms, and more than naive to think it impossible because of some "embargo" which everyone knows won't last...
...successes of the Kurds in Iraq's north as well as those of predominantly Shi'ite rebels staging a simultaneous uprising in the south have plainly spooked Saddam. Last weekend in an apparent bid to soothe popular discontent, Saddam relinquished one of his posts, that of Prime Minister, and named a new 24-member Cabinet. The new Prime Minister, Saadoun Hammadi, formerly deputy PM, is a Shi'ite and, within the context of the ruling Baath Party, is considered a moderate. But the changes are unlikely to convince the Iraqi masses that the regime has truly turned over...
...Kurds have always been tough fighters; Saladin, the nemesis of the Crusaders, was a Kurd. But this time, they have been helped by a convergence of propitious factors. Because Baghdad at first considered the unrest in the Shi'ite areas more threatening, it moved troops in the north southward, giving the guerrillas a more open field. Popular disgust with Saddam's disastrous Kuwaiti adventure fertilized the ground. "Uprising is an art," says Jalal Talabani, Damascus-based leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. "There must be a climate...
Though there is no indication that the Kurds are coordinating military tactics with the insurrectionists in the south, both Kurdish and Shi'ite groups belong to the Joint Action Committee formed by Iraqi opposition organizations in December. Still, the ambitions of the Kurds, who are Sunnis, and the Shi'ites, who want a fundamentalist government in Baghdad, are hopelessly in conflict. Last week Talabani said bluntly, "There will not be an Islamic regime in Iraq." Meanwhile, the Shi'ites suspect that in victory Kurdistan would bolt from the republic at the first opportunity. Outsiders are equally skeptical that the Kurds...