Word: shying
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...steel gate in front of the stucco house in the Iraqi city of Najaf swings open and a bearded man appears, flanked by two armed policemen. "Go away -- please," says the middle-aged son of Ayatullah Sayyid Abul Qasim al-Khoei, spiritual leader of the world's Shi'ite Muslims. The son trembles and speaks in whispers. Had not other journalists spoken to the Ayatullah? "Yes, and after they left the police came -- and it was worse," he says. "Please go away, and don't come back. Ten of our family and dozens of my father's followers...
During the March uprising against Saddam Hussein's regime, the Ayatullah pleaded with Iraq's Shi'ites to exercise moderation. The old man, who is over 90, even traveled from Najaf to Baghdad to speak with Saddam. According to diplomats in the capital, the government promised to release six members of Khoei's family if the Ayatullah would condemn the rebellion on Iraqi television. He did so, but rather than deliver on his promise, Saddam double- crossed him, putting even more of his relatives behind bars...
...headmistress of a girls' school in Saddam City, a poor Shi'ite suburb of Baghdad, is equally reticent. During the rebellion, soldiers cordoned off the neighborhood for three days and searched every house for weapons, killing 200 people in the process, according to a source close to the Iraqi army. Today all is quiet in the rubbish-strewn streets, but the memory lingers. "Go away," the headmistress entreats when asked simply to comment on daily life in Iraq. "It is dangerous for us and dangerous for the school...
...They would like to see the Shi'ite part of Iraq as their own, but I don't think they will be able to accomplish...
...gulf war ended in disaster, some of the disclosures in The Commanders, especially those dealing with Powell's doubts, might have become a cause celebre. But the war was a military triumph, notwithstanding the terrible suffering of the Kurds and Shi'ites after their unsuccessful postwar uprising against Saddam. Woodward's descriptions of prewar debates and concerns thus seem to reflect no more than admirable prudence. Powell in particular emerges as just the kind of wartime general a nation wants: one who sees problems before they happen and guards against them...