Word: civilian
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Such is the course of the gulf war. The coalition's air and naval forces have a free hand in conducting battle, but only after nonmilitary sensitivities are accommodated. Just as the alliance is trying to avoid civilian casualties, so too it is eager to save as much of Kuwait's infrastructure as possible...
Similar arguments apply to a retaliatory use of chemical weapons. Though being ripped apart by shrapnel is a horrible way to die, the prospect of an agonizing death from nerve gas is somehow more frightening. Unlike explosives, chemicals can drift into civilian areas. If the U.S. were to unholster these weapons, it would have a hard time continuing its campaign to ban them altogether after the war. And like nukes, there is nothing chemicals can achieve militarily that cannot be accomplished with more acceptable arms...
Saddam reportedly shuttles among half a dozen underground bunkers -- including one that is luxuriously appointed and designed to withstand a nuclear blast -- or hides out in civilian neighborhoods, which he knows the U.S. will not intentionally attack. Israeli military officials say privately that if they were to retaliate for Iraqi assaults on their territory, they would happily go after Saddam. But even with their renowned ability to ferret out foes, the Israelis cannot get a fix on him. "When it was possible, nobody thought of it," says a high-ranking official in Jerusalem, "and now that everybody is thinking...
...picture show? Did he believe that the grisly footage would turn Western public opinion against the war? Deter pilots from their missions? Raise doubts about the fortitude and courage of the allied fighting forces? If so, Saddam had grossly miscalculated once again. The clumsy propaganda seemed only to harden civilian and military resolve that Saddam must be stopped. Western viewers did not need expert commentary to conclude that the statements made by 13 captured pilots -- eight Americans, two Britons, two Italians and one Kuwaiti -- had been brutally coerced, in bald violation of the Geneva Conventions' provisions on the treatment...
...vowing to deploy the POWs as human shields at "civilian, economic, educational and other targets," Saddam aimed to curtail the allied aerial campaign, the plan backfired as miserably as his earlier threat to put the now released Western hostages to the same use. "America is angry about this," said an irritated President Bush. "If ((Saddam)) thought this brutal treatment of pilots is the way to muster world support, he is dead wrong." Saddam's tactics also aroused disgust in Europe. "He's a man without pity," said British Prime Minister John Major. Both Bush and Major hinted that they might...