Word: deserts
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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When he thinks about it at all, which he tries hard not to do, Ali Basa can remember in detail exactly when his luck ran out. It was shortly after 1 p.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 28, at a point in the Kuwaiti desert about 14 miles north of the Saudi border. On eight previous smuggling runs, the midday heat had protected Basa's overland enterprise. The Iraqis, everyone knew, were creatures of habit who invariably shunned the harsh...
...passion, accounting ordinarily might come in dead last. But nothing about the Persian Gulf crisis is ordinary, and some angry national and international arguments are breaking out about what, at least in part, are questions of accounting: How much more will the Pentagon really have to spend on Operation Desert Shield? Are certain allies, notably Saudi Arabia, getting rich from the crisis or actually losing money? Are others, pre-eminently Germany and Japan, falling behind even on their relatively piddling pledges...
...increased cost, of course, largely represents President Bush's decision to roughly double the size of the U.S. force in the gulf area. Nonetheless, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has raised its estimate of the extra costs of Operation Desert Shield from an initial $7 billion to only $12 billion. Some legislators suspect the Pentagon of playing a numbers game in arriving at its own, far higher figure. Because Congress decided to finance the gulf operation outside the regular budget, they believe, the Defense Department is exaggerating Desert Shield's price tag by including many extraneous costs...
...young Americans wait for their presents in the desert. They come addressed to Operation Desert Shield, APO New York, 09848-0006. They are parcels of home shipped into a zone that is nearly as alien and inhospitable as space -- temperatures unnatural, planet sand-colored to the horizon, days blinding, nights full of stars. Home, built around the cave and fire pit, belongs to a more Teutonic, cold-weather scheme of things...
Americans this year will spend some $35 billion on records, audio- and videotapes and CDs, almost as much as they will spend on Japanese hardware manufactured to play them. In the air-conditioned Nevada desert, the opening of two gargantuan amusement centers dedicated to gambling and show business -- the Mirage and Excalibur hotels -- is leading Las Vegas toward its biggest year ever. In Nashville the country-music business is keeping the local economy afloat amid a tide of regional recession. Felix Rohatyn, the fiscal doctor, says the only hope for New York City, laid low by the collapse...