Word: saddamism
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Virtually all Arabs feel a kind of residual kinship with Saddam because of ! their common cultural ties. But they react to him in markedly different ways. In their profound and continuing frustration, many of the Palestinians are instinctively attracted to Saddam. That seems odd in at least one way: the Palestinians might be expected to sympathize more with the Kuwaitis, as Arabs displaced from their homeland. Instead, most identify with Saddam's aggressions and his determination to get even with Israel...
...future of Saddam probably depends upon two factors: 1) how long the war goes on, and 2) whether, or how, Israel becomes involved. In a short war, Saddam in Arab psychology might be dispensable -- a humiliated failure when the Arab cause needed a triumphant hero, not a martyr. But if the battle is prolonged, if Arab casualties mount, if television cameras show the bodies of Iraqi civilians blasted by American bombs, then Arabs will recoil in even greater anger from the U.S. and the others in the coalition. Even in defeat, Saddam could emerge stronger still...
...steadily increased. Would Israel continue to heed , U.S. and allied pleas not to strike back, or was it being goaded beyond endurance? If it did retaliate, could the U.S. hold the anti-Iraq coalition together, or might some of its Arab members bolt? How much longer would Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, despite days of relentless aerial battering, remain capable of unleashing his long-dreaded chemical and bacteriological weapons? How soon might the U.S. start the ground attack that is still thought necessary to push Saddam's armies out of Kuwait, and how bloody will that eventual land war prove...
...basic decisions that led to war were probably taken by Bush and Saddam within a few days of Iraq's seizure of Kuwait last Aug. 2. Only after 6 1/2 hours of stonewalling by Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz when he met U.S. Secretary of State James Baker in Geneva on Jan. 9, however, did the White House finally give up hope of inducing Saddam to disgorge Kuwait by any means short of war. But as late as Tuesday, Jan. 15, the day the United Nations Security Council had fixed back in November as the deadline for Iraq...
...Saddam would have done better to consult Domino's Pizza, which put out a warning at 5 a.m. Wednesday that war was likely later that day. Domino's had $ noticed record delivery orders the previous night from the White House and Pentagon, presumably to fuel officials through crisis meetings. In fact, around 11 a.m. Tuesday during a meeting in the Oval Office with his top national-security advisers, Bush signed a directive authorizing the attack unless there was a last-minute diplomatic breakthrough. That afternoon Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney signed an "execute" order putting the directive into effect...