counter an Iraqi threat against Kuwait. The massive US deployment follows an

Iraqi build up along the Kuwaiti border, including about 20,000 troops from

Baghdad's Republican Guard. The Clinton administration responds with a show of

force and a word of warning. "Our policy is clear: we will not allow Iraq to

threaten its neighbors or to intimidate the United Nations as it ensures that

Iraq never again possesses weapons of mass destruction." Russia marches into the

middle of the fray to try to defuse the crisis. After the week-long faceoff with

the United States, Saddam Hussein finally blinks. "As a gesture of goodwill to the

Iraqi friends it has decided to withdraw the armed forces in question deeper into

Iraq." Iraqi troops draw back to their positions before the crisis, and what

could have been another Desert Storm amounts to little more than thundering.