Word: scud
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...missile has intercepted and destroyed another in combat, when a Patriot downed a Scud...
Saddam's strategy is clear -- making a virtue of necessity. He cannot reach out and strike the allied forces because his air force is in hiding or in exile, his insignificant navy is bottled up, and his Scud missiles are too inaccurate to pose much threat to military targets. He can only hope that the allied troops will come to him in a frontal assault on his fixed positions...
Throughout, he played the international arms market deftly, aware that he could keep his foes guessing about the contents of his arsenal by avoiding one-stop shopping. The Scud missiles fired against Israel and Saudi Arabia, for instance, were bought from the Soviet Union but were upgraded with equipment and expertise purchased from other nations. France provided guidance systems, Germany and Italy improved propulsion, and Brazil assembled the parts. Iraq's underground aircraft shelters were also hybrid creations. According to European press reports, Belgians designed the shelters, Swiss provided air-filtration units, Italians blastproof doors, and Britons and Germans...
...picture that a reporter got a close look at, three dark half-moons turned out to be revetments for mobile artillery, but with no guns visible inside. Captain Barclay Trehal claims that the 50 specialists he bosses can distinguish live and dead aircraft, Scud missile launchers, vehicles and entrenchments -- but not soldiers, who are too small to be seen. Their presence has to be inferred from concentrations of vehicles and equipment. Their numbers can only be guessed at. How much damage they may suffer from bomb hits is a more speculative judgment still...
Bush lieutenants admit to two other mild disappointments. Scud missile launchers in Iraq have taken a longer time to find and destroy than expected. General Schwarzkopf reported that 35 Scuds were lobbed against Israel or Saudi Arabia in the first seven days of the war, only 18 in the second seven days. And in the first half of the war's third week only four launchings were recorded: three warheads fell on or near the Israeli-occupied West Bank, causing no reported casualties, and another aimed at Riyadh was destroyed by a Patriot missile. But 1,500 sorties have been...