Word: saddams
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...President needed no prodding for war. A month earlier, Clinton had ordered a meticulously planned assault and called it off only at the last minute, when Saddam promised full cooperation with UNSCOM. At the time, Clinton declared that war would come without warning if Saddam misbehaved again. Months of Iraqi duplicity had convinced the White House that UNSCOM wouldn't get compliance. So when he got advance word on the contents of Butler's report on Sunday, Dec. 13, the President, in Jerusalem at the beginning of his Middle East trip, had no good choice but to act. He gave...
...Clinton claimed he had to strike while the Butler report was hot and because "to initiate military action during Ramadan [coming up over the weekend] would be profoundly offensive to the Muslim world." But even within the American military, there were private grumblings about the campaign's awkward timing. "Saddam has been kicking Bill Clinton in the teeth for more than five years," said an Army officer. "And we have to attack on the eve of his impeachment? Give me a break." Iraq Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz lashed out at UNSCOM for giving Washington an advance look...
...slow erosion--of the consensus for sanctions against Iraq. China has long called for a lifting of the embargo to ensure an uninterrupted flow of imported oil. Lawmakers in Moscow too muttered darkly about unilateral removal of trade restrictions. Even if sanctions survive, there's no guarantee that Saddam will become less dangerous, just as a toothless UNSCOM didn't keep him in check...
...Administration's best-case scenario, the bombings will lead either to Saddam's downfall or to fuller inspections by UNSCOM, assuming a chastened Iraq allows the teams to return. At worst the air war will end UNSCOM inspections for good without having done much to debilitate Saddam's capacity to manufacture his lethal weapons. UNSCOM has been stymied by Saddam to the point of impotence, but it did provide a mechanism for measuring how and when sanctions could be lifted. Its demise could boost sentiment among Arab nations to drop the embargo, with Russia and China possibly pulling...
That won't do much for America's image. But it could well bolster Saddam's. He has always believed defiance, as in surviving a military onslaught, brings admiration. That's why Saddam's fall from power--the ultimate goal of the Administration--seems as elusive as ever. The already weak Iraqi opposition groups to whom the U.S. has given its blessing watched last week's raids with a sense of mounting dread. The Administration has so far withheld outright military assistance for a guerrilla campaign, and would-be recipients fear the bombings will create a false impression of progress...