It Wasn't for Lack of Trying

"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.

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.