Word: ites
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...five coups since 1958, Saddam's 12 years in power are a record. His Baath Party has imposed stability through control of the army and a network of secret police and informers that penetrates every niche of Iraqi society. If that is swept away, simmering tensions between the Shi'ite Muslims (55% of the population), Sunni Muslims (20%) and Kurds (25%) could conceivably erupt into a communal bloodbath, fragmenting the country into another Lebanon...
Opposition to the Iraqis was extremely well organized in part because it was built around clandestine groups that existed before the occupation. In addition to Shi'ite Muslims opposed to the Emir, these include members of Arafat's Fatah guerrilla organization and Hamas, a more extreme Palestinian group that has been a key participant in the intifadeh in the Israeli-occupied areas. In addition, Ahmed Jibril's pro-Syrian Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command has detonated car bombs at Iraqi targets in Kuwait City...
Some of the Shi'ite resistance members are believed to have been part of a secret organization set up by Iran during the Iran-Iraq war. They were there not to support the ruling family of the Emir, Sheik Jaber al-Ahmad al-Sabah, but to topple it. When the Emir fled the country, however, the same Shi'ites, including women in chadors, came out to demonstrate, brandishing photographs of the Emir. "You shouldn't be surprised at this," said a Western diplomat who lived in Kuwait. "In the Middle East, groups can change sides very quickly...
Saddam can seek shelter in a palace bunker some 40 miles out of Baghdad, but allied forces are unlikely to find him there. During wartime, the Iraqi leader makes a habit of hiding in civilian areas. A Shi'ite opposition leader recalls that his cousin's family was rousted by soldiers at dawn several years ago. The group was sent to Baghdad's Al Rasheed Hotel for the next 24 hours before being permitted to return home. Only then did government officials tell the family that Saddam had spent the previous evening in its quarters. In thanks for the coerced...
...that would follow. But hindsight suggests that he would probably have provoked Iran into battle even if he had known all the consequences at the outset. From his point of view, the alternative was worse: the militant Islamic fundamentalism, fanned by the Ayatullah Khomeini, would arouse Iraq's Shi'ite Muslims, some 55% of the population, leading not only to Saddam's overthrow but also to the domination of his Arab state by the descendants of the ancient Persian enemy. Would this really have happened? Saddam did not wait for an answer...