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- <text id=91TT1603>
- <title>
- July 22, 1991: It Wasn't for Lack of Trying
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1991
- July 22, 1991 The Colorado
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- NATION, Page 17
- It Wasn't for Lack of Trying
- </hdr><body>
- <p> "We're not in the business of targeting Saddam Hussein,"
- President Bush insisted during Operation Desert Storm. But that
- did not stop people from weighing the practical and moral
- aspects of assassination as a weapon in wartime. And according
- to U.S. military attack plans obtained by TIME last week, it
- wasn't for lack of trying that American forces failed to kill
- Saddam during six weeks of unrelenting aerial bombardment. The
- targeting documents, including some dated Jan. 14, 1991, two
- days before the bombing began, list the "Baghdad Presidential
- Palace," the "Taji Presidential Retreat," a few miles north of
- Baghdad, and the "Abu Ghurayb Presidential Grounds," near the
- Baghdad airport. At least two of these sites were struck by U.S.
- aircraft--but through a combination of luck, ingenuity and
- frequent changes of residence, Saddam managed to emerge
- unscathed.
- </p>
- <p> Since 1976 U.S. policy has banned assassination attempts.
- The Pentagon repeated last week that "per Executive Order, we
- did not target the person of Saddam Hussein." The sites that
- U.S. forces did bomb--bunkers, command posts, presidential
- palaces--were "instruments of Iraq's military command
- authority," said a Defense Department spokesman.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
-