Word: saddamism
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Instead Saddam seemed to be exploring how he might get out of the war while there is something left of his army and regime, not to mention his skin. The statement, issued in the name of the five-man Revolutionary Command Council, declared Iraq's "readiness to deal" with U.N. Security Council Resolution No. 660. That resolution, adopted the very day of the invasion, is the basic document calling on Iraq to get out of Kuwait. And the long string of conditions attached to the withdrawal that the U.N. had insisted be unconditional might well be an initial bid designed...
...desert were making book on how soon the long-awaited U.S.-led ground offensive would begin. Most were guessing a day or two; a week was about the longest wait anyone expected. The journalists were reading signs of an imminent attack that must have been just as obvious to Saddam's generals. Among them: American bombing was moving closer and closer to the Iraqi front lines; the allies were using new weapons, including fuel-air bombs, to blast paths through the minefields that soldiers and tanks would have to cross in an initial assault; and weather conditions were close...
...endgame," said William Quandt, a former chief Middle East analyst at the National Security Council. Georgia Democrat Sam Nunn, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, agreed: "In the Arab world, you always have to be prepared for bargaining, and this may be the opening gambit." And Saddam, for all his intense stubbornness, could reverse course overnight if that seems necessary or desirable. Witness his blithe return to Iran last summer of the pitifully little territory Iraq had gained during eight supremely bloody years of war between the two countries...
Wittingly or not, Saddam appeared to put greater pressure on himself to end the war too. The broadcast of the Revolutionary Command Council statement initially set off wild celebrations in Baghdad. Auto horns honked, people embraced each other in the streets and soldiers fired automatic weapons into the air, apparently in the belief that the war was as good as over. But as word of the long list of conditions circulated, the mood turned dejected, if not sullen. As an iron-fisted dictator who rules through fear, Saddam is immune to pressure from any Iraqi peace movement; there is none...
None of this means that peace is at hand. Even if Saddam tries to come up with a formula for withdrawal from Kuwait that would satisfy the allies, there is no assurance he can do so. Bush, Major and French President Francois Mitterrand all stressed last week that the U.N. demands for immediate and unconditional withdrawal mean exactly that, and they will settle for nothing less. Moreover, said all three, promises will not suffice; until Saddam actually begins a massive withdrawal, the war, and the bombing specifically, will continue as if nothing had happened...