Word: attacks
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Dates: during 1990-1990
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...imponderables range from the nitty and literally gritty (how badly will the fine desert sand foul the gears of tanks and the breeches of rifles?) to the conceptual (could U.S. troops bypass the dug-in Iraqi forces in Kuwait with a flanking attack?). They include questions of psychology: Is the Iraqi army battle hardened from eight years of war against Iran, or battle weary? Would the troops on the front line, many of whom are thought to be ill-trained draftees who know they are cannon fodder, fight hard or give up quickly? For that matter, how battle ready...
...authorized the alliance to use "all necessary means" to evict Saddam's soldiers from Kuwait, with selective air raids on military targets in Iraq. But those supposedly "surgical strikes," all sources agree, could quickly escalate to a massive aerial bombing campaign carried out by 700 American attack planes flying out of ground bases in Saudi Arabia and Turkey, plus 200 more taking off from the six aircraft carriers the U.S. will have stationed in the region...
...unless the Iraqi troops collapsed quickly and began surrendering en ( masse, allied infantry and armor would have to go on the attack. On paper the ratios seem extremely unfavorable. Conventional military wisdom is that attackers should have a 3-to-1 superiority in numbers to blast defenders out of well-entrenched positions; in Kuwait and Iraq the numbers would be only equal. American tanks would actually be outnumbered 3-to-1 by Iraqi armor, though the numbers of heavy tanks would be approximately even, and the American M1 Abrams is thought to be superior in speed, maneuverability and firepower...
...would be released in a mist of infectious droplets that victims would inhale. A tiny amount would go a long way. Less than 1 g (0.035 oz.) of a bacterium called tularemia could produce thousands of deadly doses. U.S. officials insist that soldiers can be protected from such an attack with gas masks and nonpermeable clothing. But the gear cannot be worn indefinitely, especially in the desert's searing heat, and strains resistant to existing vaccines can be developed...
After the Osirak attack, Iraq tried to realize its ambitions by buying bomb- grade material from underground suppliers. In 1982 Iraqi agents paid $60 million to a team of Italian-based smugglers who claimed to have access to stores of plutonium and highly enriched uranium. According to U.S. officials, the smugglers' offer was a fraud, and the Iraqis walked away from it empty- handed...