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Time - Man of the Year
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Time_Man_of_the_Year_Compact_Publishing_3YX-Disc-1_Compact_Publishing_1993.iso
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1993-04-08
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THE WEEK, Page 14WORLDYou Blinked! No, You Did!
Iraq and the U.S. step back from the brink -- for now
George Bush and Saddam Hussein have this much in common: each
wants to keep his job, and each would like to be rid of the
other. They've been doing their best on both fronts. After days
of hard negotiation at the United Nations, the three-week
showdown over whether a U.N. inspection team would gain access
to the Iraqi Agriculture Ministry ended. Baghdad agreed to admit
a team of inspectors -- with one important catch: the building
would still be barred to inspectors from the U.S. or any other
nation that fought Iraq in the Gulf War.
George Bush quickly called the agreement a "cave-in" by
Saddam. In part, it was. Saddam relented in the face of signs
that the U.S. was reaching for its guns. Over the weekend, with
the carrier Independence already in the Persian Gulf, the
Pentagon moved the Saratoga to the eastern Mediterranean and
dispatched Patriot launchers and missiles to Kuwait. But
Baghdad's two-steps-forward-one-step-back confrontation with
Washington allowed Saddam for the first time have a say in the
makeup of a U.N. inspection team. It also let him claim a
triumph over the U.S. By the time the U.N. team entered the
building on Tuesday -- as three inspectors, two of them
American, waited outside -- the Iraqis had had five days to
remove any incriminating materials. To no one's surprise, the
inspectors found nothing.
Baghdad's compromise left the U.S. without a clear policy
for getting Saddam to observe the cease-fire that he has been
violating for months in ways large and small. Among the largest
has been his mounting assault on Shi`ite rebels in southern
Iraq. As one countermove, Secretary of State James Baker met in
Washington with leaders of the Iraqi opposition. At the U.N.,
Britain, France and the U.S. are drawing up a new resolution to
authorize force if the Shi`ite crackdown is not stopped.
Bush has pointedly left open the possibility of future
military action. To back up his point, on Friday the Pentagon
announced that the U.S. will send 2,400 Army troops to Kuwait
over the next three weeks for training exercises. Saddam may
think that the President's political weakness at home will make
it more difficult for him to muster support for renewed action
against Iraq -- and at the same time more damaging for him to
give the impression of being powerless in the face of Iraqi
provocations. Bush may have been thinking along the same lines
last week when he insisted that Saddam will be made to comply
with all terms of the cease-fire. Said the President: "He may
not know it, but he's going to do it."