Word: shied
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...around himself a tight circle of supporters, loyal members of his al-Tikriti clan, whose interlocking relationships ensure his control of the security services, the military and the Baath party. The army is run by a cousin who launched poison-gas attacks against the Kurds in 1988 and destroyed Shi'ite holy sites in the south after the war. Internal security is entrusted to two half- brothers, and Saddam's younger son, Qusai, 26, was recently put in charge of the 10,000-man presidential guard. Another half-brother, Barzan al-Tikriti, has just returned from a 10-year stint...
...years after Saddam's shattering defeat in the Gulf War, the Iraqi dictator remains in full control of the Baghdad government. Though he has lost his hold on Kurdistan in the north and over parts of the Shi'ite south, he has bottled up the insurgents in both regions so they do not threaten his rule. Every step he takes has been aimed at buttressing his authority. He rebuilt Baghdad and the central region, where his Sunni Muslim backers hold sway; he gives government workers and members of the armed forces regular pay increases and relentlessly bombards the nation with...
...result, Saddam's power base remains solid. Postwar clashes with the armed and dangerous Kurds and Shi'ites alarmed the minority Sunnis, who provide the bulk of Saddam's military and civilian support. "When things threaten to fall apart," says Baghdad novelist Jabra Ibrahim Jabra, "you stick with the man who can hold it together. Saddam was the one man who could make the center hold...
Saddam Hussein's writ does not extend over the 6,800 sq. mi. of marsh that covers southern Iraq. There Shi'ite army deserters and Marsh Arabs who rose in rebellion after Iraq's defeat in the Gulf War carry on their fight against Saddam. But they fear that their struggle may be doomed now that Baghdad has undertaken the systematic despoliation of the age-old Shi'ite sanctuary in the marshes. Over the past 20 months, according to captured documents and engineering plans now trickling out of Iraq, the government has nearly completed work on a huge project...
...equipped and ill-trained Shi'ite fighters have survived largely because of the protection offered by the terrain, with its floating reed islands and 20-ft. tall forests of papyrus and rushes. But once the swamps are dry, the rebels fear not only enemy tanks but also fires, which would push them into the arms of troops surrounding the perimeter. In February three blazes set by Iraqi barrages scorched several hundred square miles of marshland and destroyed dozens of villages...