CULTURE WATCH : Words of the Week

A year ago, when Saddam Hussein predicted the Gulf War would be the “mother of all battles,” little did he know what was to follow.

Everyone, it seems, has jumped on the “mother of all . . . “ bandwagon:

* Last winter, Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, describing the Iraqi defeat, said the “Mother of All Battles (had) turned into the Mother of All Retreats.”

* In June, even before Clarence Thomas was named, Benjamin L. Hooks, executive director of the NAACP, presciently declared that the Senate’s grilling of a Supreme Court nominee would be “the mother of all confirmation hearings.”

* Edwin Krupp, director of the Griffith Observatory, described the July total solar eclipse as “the mother of all eclipses.”

* In October, then-RTC Chairman L. William Seidman called the S&L; bailout “the mother of all government mistakes.”

* Earlier this month, Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar) called the embattled Green Line “the mother of all white elephants.”

* And from headline writers, entertainment reporters and other journalists: “The mother of all cheese steaks,” “the mother of all wrap parties” and “the mother of all Home Depots.”

The final take on Hussein’s declaration may come from the Iraqi people themselves, who are reportedly calling the “Mother of All Battles” the “Mother of All Troubles.”