Word: basra
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Also overblown, says Salem, are reports that Kuwait's hospitals are full of Iraqi casualties. "There are perhaps 200," he says, "but not thousands, as we know you have heard. On the other hand, our people say that the hospitals in Basra are indeed full. It seems that the Iraqis are taking their wounded home...
Other resistance fighters report that Iraq's Republican Guards are being hit as hard by allied air attacks as the Pentagon's briefers say. "We hear it, and in some cases we see it," says one, "and the road to Basra is busy. Palestinians who have helped the Iraqis are fleeing Kuwait, and Kuwaitis who fled to Basra are coming back because the U.S. bombing of southern Iraq and northern Kuwait has become so heavy that it's safer to be back here...
...what would America gain? Nothing to speak of. Advanced non-nuclear weapons such as fuel-air bombs and cluster bombs can do virtually as much damage to battlefield targets as nukes would. The only sites a nuclear device could eliminate more effectively are cities, for instance Baghdad or Basra. Today's city-aimed missile would not necessarily pack the wallop of Little Boy, the 12.5-kiloton A-bomb that fell on Hiroshima. But even a 2-kiloton package would kill thousands of civilians, violating the most basic rule of war: non-combatants are not fair game...
...their water supply. According to U.S. intelligence reports, the Iraqis have only about four days' worth of water on hand for drinking and for cooling tanks and vehicles. The supply flows from an already damaged desalinization plant in Kuwait City and via pipelines and tanker trucks from Baghdad and Basra. So far, allied bombers have concentrated on higher-priority targets within Iraq, including mobile Scud missile launchers. But coalition leaders will soon focus on the supply lines, and remain confident that they can thirst out the Iraqis. Predicts one White House official: "They'll come out with their hands...
...Colin Powell, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Wednesday in Washington that air attacks would intensify along supply routes and lines of communications around the Iraqi city of Basra, near the Persian Gulf and Kuwait border, in attempt to strangle the Iraqi army in Kuwait...