Word: raid
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Administration did not dismiss that possibility. The President told a business group the day after the raid, "Yesterday the United States won but a single engagement in a long battle against terrorism." But as that battle proceeds, Reagan has made his intentions clear. "We have done what we had to do," he said in his televised address. "If necessary, we shall do it again...
...direct target," said Secretary of State George Shultz. Pentagon Spokesman Robert Sims elaborated: "The nerve center was the target, not the individual." Privately, though, Reagan's aides left no doubt that, to put it mildly, they would not have been unhappy if Gaddafi just happened to die in the raid. The distinction appeared to be largely legalistic; a long-standing U.S. Executive Order forbids attempts to assassinate foreign heads of state, and it would be an extremely fine point whether that includes targeting one in a bombing raid...
...launched its bombers out of a grim conviction that ruthless attacks on Americans and the citizens of many other countries will never let up until terrorists and the states that sponsor them are made to pay a price in kind. In his televised address following the raid, the President asserted that the air strike "will not only diminish Colonel Gaddafi's capacity to export terror, it will provide him with incentives and reasons to alter his criminal behavior." That argument won the support of only three U.S. allies: Britain, which gave permission for the F-111s to use English bases...
...personal residence but, said a close associate, "underground"--presumably in a bunker where he often sleeps. His family was less fortunate: an 18-month-old girl, reportedly his adopted daughter Hana, was said to have been one of at least 37 civilian casualties of the raid. The dictator's two young sons, Saif al Arab, 4, and Hamis, 3, were injured and his wife Safia shell-shocked when bombs blew off the front walls of their living quarters...
...fact that in December, Gaddafi praised and perhaps assisted the terrorists who opened fire on passengers in the Rome and Vienna airports, killing 20 people, including an eleven-year-old American, Natasha Simpson. Overall, White House Spokesman Larry Speakes was quick to contrast the casualties of the Libya raid with the 938 people he said had died last year in terrorist attacks around the world, though American officials admitted they had difficulty breaking down how many of these could be called direct or indirect victims of Gaddafi. For once, Gaddafi in his Wednesday talk made no threats of new attacks...