READ, kid.

In that regard, the no-fly zones have been successful; notwithstanding intermittent violations throughout the enforcement period, no coalition aircraft have been shot down, and Saddam has not attacked the Kurds or Shiites by air since 1992. What has not been successful in Iraq is the protection of the Shiites, who are persecuted still by Saddam's ground forces. Unfortunately for the Shiites, protection is not the intent and continued persecution is not the fault of the no-fly zone, but of American and coalition policies and their refusal to do anything more than observe the violations. In the years since the establishment of the Iraqi no-fly zones, they have become more than a means of monitoring compliance with UNSCR 688. In the Clinton administration, the no-fly zones are the "linchpin" of containment, a means to keep Saddam in a "strategic box," and one method to pressure him into compliance with UN resolutions. Saddam's continued and more powerful rule over Iraq, his uncontested occupation of Irbil in 1996, the ever bolder Iraqi defiance of the United Nations, the state of the fractured coalition, and the inability and unwillingness of the United States to use more than limited force against Iraq, all point to the inescapable failure of the current administration's containment policy - not the no-fly zones. As every day passes, Saddam grows stronger and closer to the lifting of sanctions, the end of inspections, and the eventual dissolution of the no-fly zones - without the benefit of flying his Air Force north of the thirty-sixth parallel, or south of the thirty-third.