Agreement Reached on Iraq (2/24/98)
The world breathed a sigh of relief today as a tentative agreement was reached with Iraq, averting a military attack by United States forces.
The agreement was reached by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and includes 4 major points:
- The United States will hold off on military action for at least two weeks.
- Saddam Hussein will remain in power indefinitely.
- Saddam Hussein will behave in a generally threatening manner three months from now, seven months from now, and at least three times during 1999.
- In the event of a major domestic policy failure, Saddam Hussein will immediately reject all UN Resolutions regarding Iraq.
"The United States has spent a great deal of time, manpower, and resources ensuring that the world would have at least one completely unredeemable villain left. I'm glad Mr. Hussein saw the light, and chose not to throw away those years of work by provoking us into actually solving the Iraqi problem," he said at a press conference yesterday.
Despite the agreement, U.S. forces continue to pour into the Middle East. "We have to keep moving stuff around, you know, keep looking busy and all that. We've had the local news lobby on our asses for months now, begging for some "local boys go off to war" footage they can use during the lulls between the openings of various 'Disney on Ice' shows," said Defense Department spokesman John Small Berries this morning.
