Word: launchful
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Before they launched their ground attack, allied commanders were concerned that Iraqi artillery might inundate their troops with poison gas and nerve agents. In fact, not a single chemical weapon was fired, even though U.S. Marines found stocks of poison-gas shells in frontline positions. General Schwarzkopf said he did not know why the Iraqis failed to use them, but he speculated that their artillery -- the main delivery system for chemical shells -- was too badly damaged to launch a concerted attack. It is also possible that the chemicals themselves were no longer potent after being stored for months...
Child-custody disputes are often the trigger for youngsters' unwitting lies. Suspicions can cause parents to launch what legal scholar Douglas Besharov of Washington's American Enterprise Institute calls "the atomic bomb of child- custody fights, the charge of sex abuse." In these stressful situations, children quickly discover what adults want to hear and can offer lies or distortions in order to please an anxious parent or social worker. A study conducted by the American Academy of Child Psychiatry found that in custody disputes involving charges of sex abuse, as many as 36% of the allegations were later proved...
Since IFF transponders are impractical for ground forces, aircraft flying close support stay in constant radio contact with forward air controllers, whose job it is to track the shifting battle lines and point out enemy targets. Before an attack plane can launch its missiles at a Iraqi tank, an FAC must identify the target, declare that particular plane "hot" and switch on the targeting authority on the plane's computer. "The complexity is that you've got human beings in the chain," says Army spokesman Major Peter Keating. "And at night, when everybody's moving and talking on the radio...
Despite initial fears, the attackers turned out to be not Iraqi-sponsored terrorists but an older British adversary: the Irish Republican Army. The would-be assassins had parked a van 200 yds. from the Prime Minister's offices, then used a delayed-timing device to launch three mortar shells from the vehicle while they escaped. One landed in a garden at the back of Major's official residence; two more fell behind the Foreign Office. A total of three people were injured...
...next few weeks. One of the top-priority U.S. targets is the Republican Guards, Saddam's crack troops, who form a mobile reserve to be thrown into the eventual land battle for Kuwait at the most critical points. A high British officer says the allies will not launch the climactic ground offensive until at least 30%, and preferably 50%, of the Guards' fighting power is destroyed from the air. But how will they know when that point is reached? Washington officials admit they are having trouble gauging how much damage bombing is doing to the widely dispersed and well...