Word: battlefield
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...voice criticism of their government in defiance of the dreaded mukhabarat, or secret police. The most common complaint has been the misery caused by the war. But this can be only the beginning. When the defeated troops return home with their stories of what really happened on the battlefield, Saddam's claims of a glorious victory will be further undermined. "There will be a lot of opposition to Saddam inside Iraq," observes Jamal Sha'ir, a former Jordanian Cabinet minister. "People will feel, 'You are the one who sank us. You can't be the one to correct things...
...huge number of men and weapons Saddam poured into Kuwait, many military observers expected him to fight more effectively and inflict many more casualties than he did. As Schwarzkopf recounted at his wrap-up briefing, Iraqi combat forces outnumbered the coalition's 2 to 1 on the battlefield. In addition, the Iraqis had many more tanks and artillery pieces and had carefully dug them...
...Training was revised from "doing it by the book" to "training to win." In place of the customary set pieces that passed for classroom exercises, officers were encouraged to roam a figurative battlefield intellectually, looking for tactical possibilities...
...were accompanied by a curriculum reform at the military academies. Today's future officers are allowed more flexibility in their studies. They can take elective courses either in their major subjects or in the humanities and sciences, and of course spend a good deal of time absorbing the new battlefield thinking that has emerged over the past two decades. The Pentagon, says Martin Binkin, a defense expert at the Brookings Institution, "literally rewrote the textbook on war. It's a new ball game in every way. The battle cry is 'Fight smart!' " The merits of that approach are written...
...most stunning, overwhelming victory in war is a beginning as well as an end. Diplomatic problems will persist long after the burned-out hulks of Iraqi tanks and the bodies strewn across the cratered battlefield are buried by sand. Political dangers will explode after the last of thousands of mines are dug up. Psychological reverberations will be felt when the final echoes of cheers for the victors have died away...