Word: desertic
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
There is free time in the desert -- sometimes much too much of it. Desert Shield Radio, a network of four FM stations, plays news and music round the clock, a welcome replacement for Baghdad Betty, who used to taunt soldiers that their wives back home were being unfaithful. (One cuckolder was said to be Bart Simpson.) She has not been heard from since the bombing began. By and large, music tastes are fairly sedate. Since the fighting started, says program director Sergeant Major Bob Nelson, "it's like someone put a pillow on it; we got a lot of requests...
With their troops poised to attack, allied commanders were haunted by last- minute doubts. Had General Schwarzkopf correctly assessed the all-important center of gravity? Would chemical weapons disrupt the delicate timing of the attack? Could U.S. forces outpace the Republican Guard in a desert the Iraqis know well? And is the troops' equipment -- particularly the portable antitank weaponry...
Attacking a tank in the desert is far less ambiguous than picking out one building in a crowded neighborhood for demolition. The campaign against Iraq's dug-in divisions is a textbook exercise in air warfare: hundreds of planes are in the sky every day, with F-15s flying a protective patrol high above, while attack planes blast away at tanks, artillery pieces and ammunition dumps below...
Fighter-bomber pilots have divided the battlefield into small, lettered squares on the map called "killing zones." Working their way across the desert, sector by sector, spotters direct strike planes onto specific targets on the ground. Electronic-warfare planes black out ground-based Iraqi radar, as airborne tankers circle lazily to refuel the fighters that line up behind them. The whole armada is choreographed by controllers in AWACs radar planes, who see everything in the air for more than 200 miles in any direction. The Iraqis in Kuwait, says Captain Jessie Morimoto, a U.S. Air Force intelligence officer, have "stopped...
...timing seemed almost as significant as the wording. The offer, broadcast by Baghdad Radio last Friday, came just as allied correspondents in the Saudi desert were making book on how soon the long-awaited U.S.-led ground offensive would begin. Most were guessing a day or two; a week was about the longest wait anyone expected. The journalists were reading signs of an imminent attack that must have been just as obvious to Saddam's generals. Among them: American bombing was moving closer and closer to the Iraqi front lines; the allies were using new weapons, including fuel-air bombs...