Word: launch
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...that was not exactly the most warlike battle cry ever issued, it was typical of a week of confusing and contradictory signals on whether the U.S. is preparing to launch an armed attack to oust Iraqi forces from Kuwait. After Defense Secretary Dick Cheney and General Colin Powell, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recommended that 100,000 U.S. troops be added to the 210,000 already deployed along the Persian Gulf, there were widespread rumors and speculation that the offensive would start soon after this week's congressional elections -- or before Christmas, or early in the new year...
...worth of canned tuna and rice. If Iraq tried to interfere with the mission, that might provide a pretext for massive military retaliation. Saddam's reaction was to put his commanders on "extreme alert" in order to "thwart the perfidious intentions of the United States and its allies to launch an attack in the coming few days...
...talk escalated, congressional leaders sought reassurance that Bush is not planning to launch an offensive while the legislature is in recess for the next three months. Bush refused to commit himself. Although the Constitution gives only Congress the authority to declare war, Bush, like several recent Presidents, claims the right to use military force on his own. "Nobody asked the President to rule out a military option," said Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont after the leaders conferred with Bush. "But many of us told him to make sure that we don't use the military option out of impatience...
...wait impatiently, cleaning their weapons, exercising, thinking of D-day. Flashing overhead are the best attack planes of the U.S. Air Force: F-15s, F-16s, radar-evading F-117 Stealth fighters. At sea, U.S. Navy Aegis cruisers train their Tomahawk cruise missiles on Iraqi targets, while aircraft carriers launch and recover squadrons of bombers and interceptors...
What does America's space program have in common with a soprano saxophone? Quite a lot, when the instrument is played by Jane Ira Bloom, 35, a jazz virtuoso who was the first musician commissioned to create a work for NASA's art program. Witnessing a Discovery shuttle launch close up inspired her to compose a four-part suite entitled Rediscovery, which premiered at Cape Canaveral last fall. Long fascinated by the links between music and motion, Bloom has also composed scores for the famed Pilobolus Dance Theater and the repertory theater at Yale, where she earned a master...