Word: shied
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...were the Kurds Saddam's only new victims. While civilians throughout Iraq struggled to replace shattered power plants and water lines -- not to mention scrounging for food -- the regime also threw its energy into smashing the Shi'ites in the south who want Saddam's secular Baathist regime replaced by Islamic rule. In the five weeks since the liberation of Kuwait, Baghdad has retaken every major rebel-held city and town, sometimes with terrifying vindictiveness...
Saddam took aim first at the south, where he gathered the remnants of his defeated army and the armor that escaped the allies into a loyal force that rapidly overwhelmed the weak and ill-equipped Shi'ite insurgents. He dispatched two Republican Guard divisions that had been stationed around Baghdad to ensure the efficiency of the Iraqi troops that had failed so miserably against the allied coalition. This time it was the Shi'ite rebels who were doomed to failure. They lacked a joint command-and-communications system and were dependent largely on weapons and ammunition abandoned by Iraqi soldiers...
...often during her years at 10 Downing Street, Margaret Thatcher cut to the heart of a policy question. A fiery debate over whether the U.S. and its allies should have helped Kurdish and Shi'ite rebels topple Saddam Hussein raged in Europe as well as America. But as far as current policy goes, the wrangling is meaningless because the fighting is effectively over. Right or wrong, the decision was made not to get involved in an Iraqi civil war. Saddam has smashed the revolts; he will stay in power at least temporarily -- and for the moment that pretty much...
...over whether the U.S. and its allies should have extended military support to the rebels to keep them from becoming refugees. Critics such as Democratic Senator Thomas Daschle of South Dakota and columnist William Safire charge that the U.S. made a terrible mistake by not helping the Kurds and Shi'ites. The argument is usually couched in moral terms: having repeatedly called on Iraqis to overthrow Saddam, the U.S. is disgracing itself by standing idly by while those who heeded its word are slaughtered. New York Times columnist A.M. Rosenthal bitterly asked Bush: "Why do you sully your name...
That probably means no one will save the Iraqi rebels. Like the U.S., Iraq's neighboring powers would dearly love to see Saddam overthrown. But also like the U.S. -- though for different reasons -- they are unwilling to give the insurrectionists enough help to assure their victory. Overwhelmingly Shi'ite Iran has allowed some Iraqis who either defected or were taken prisoner during the 1980-88 war between the two countries to infiltrate back into Iraq and join the Shi'ite rebels in the south. There are widespread suspicions that Iran has smuggled some arms to them too, though Tehran denies...