Word: prospect
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Arab children are so impassive at the prospect of death. One Palestinian mother from Beit Sahur in the West Bank acknowledges that "when my children hear the siren, their whole bodies start shaking." Says Ziad Ahmed, who with his six children lives in a refugee camp near Bethlehem: "My children have picked up my fear, and there's no way now to calm them down." Because of strict U.N. curfews, Palestinian youngsters in the occupied territories are cooped up at home most of the day. Another source of outrage and anxiety: a shortage of gas masks. Israeli authorities initially refused...
Saddam might also have had in mind setting the oil ablaze to thwart an amphibious Marine landing on the Kuwaiti coast. Because most crude oil burns poorly, that prospect left allied military planners unfazed -- even as they kept a wary eye on a fire that was spotted on the slick during the weekend...
Even a runt reactor can contaminate the nearby area if its radioactive core is fractured, in which case some radioactive particles could remain in the soil for decades. But the prospect that a radioactive cloud will spread across the region is universally discounted. "You would need a direct hit to splatter the stuff around," says Thomas B. Cochran of the New York City-based Natural Resources Defense Council. "And then it would be only a local hazard...
...taxing? No borrowing? That prospect raised the concern that the money may have to come from cash-starved social programs. But that path could prove ruinous at a time when 29 deficit-ridden states are unable to provide adequate financing for such vital needs as education, housing and police protection. The cost of two days of fighting surpasses the $937 million that Congress voted last year for aid to the homeless. Meanwhile, demands on the budget are swiftly growing. Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady warned last week that the savings and loan bailout will require $77 billion more in emergency funds...
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...