Word: aircrafting
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...most technologically sophisticated nation. A modern assault -- and the one on Iraq appears to have followed this pattern -- begins with an attack on the enemy's air-defense capabilities. Ground-hugging cruise missiles, flying too low for radar to detect easily, hit targets initially judged too dangerous for manned aircraft to handle. In the assault on Baghdad, some of the first blows came from Tomahawk cruise missiles fired by ships far out in the Persian Gulf. As the first explosions rocked the city, Iraqi antiaircraft fire was directed into the sky at planes that were not there -- yet. Stealth fighters...
Still another theory was that Saddam might be deliberately saving some of his aircraft and missiles to strike back later. If so, it was a risky strategy. For example, the Iraqi dictator might have been able to save many of his planes by hiding them in hardened underground bunkers; the U.S. has been bombing those bunkers, but is uncertain how many of the planes inside them it has been able to destroy. According to a White House official, it hardly matters, "because now they can't take off. We've cratered almost all the runways." Later assessments, though, were that...
...didn't Iraq arm its Scuds with poison gas during its attacks on Israel? There are several possible explanations. First, when Iraq waged chemical war on its own Kurdish minority and on Iran, the toxins used were encased in bombs and dropped by aircraft. Baghdad may not have mastered the science of equipping missiles with chemical warheads. Second, the initial Desert Storm air raids may have knocked out the Scuds armed with nerve or mustard gas, as well as possibly halting chemical production. Israel's threat of nuclear retaliation may also have muzzled those missiles. All well and good...
Both companies began carrying out previously announced contingency plans to lay off large numbers of workers. McDonnell Aircraft Co. started to hand out pink slips to some 5,000 workers, mostly in St. Louis, while General Dynamics targeted 4,000 employees for dismissal in Fort Worth and Tulsa...
Cheney's crackdown on the A-12 was actually in line with the get-tough policy he has been pursuing for months. He had previously approved the killing of the Marine Corps's V-22 Osprey vertical-takeoff plane, the Navy's Lockheed P-7 antisubmarine patrol aircraft, the Army's FOG-M (fiber-optic guided missile) and an Air Force plan to place the MX missile on rails. Said a Pentagon official of the new procurement mood: "Programs that are bleeding cannot survive...