Word: scuds
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...home nine centuries ago to the great Saladin, the Islamic victor in the Crusades. Saddam's latest Baghdad palace features columns topped with huge replicas of his own head bearing Saladin's helmet. He shaped the minarets on the grand new Mother of All Battles mosque to resemble the Scud missiles he fired at Israel during the Gulf War. These things give concrete expression--literally--to his central ambition: to be remembered and revered as the leader who restored Iraq and the Arab world generally to their rightful glory. He considers himself, says Charles Duelfer, the former deputy executive chairman...
...placed in an effective delivery system, such as a bomb or warhead fitted with an aerosol diffuser that will spread its plagues or poisons before the weapon explodes. Iraq is believed to be working to perfect such delivery systems. All but about a dozen of Iraq's Soviet-made Scud missiles were accounted for and dismantled after the Gulf War, but last year Iraq began testing a new line of short-range ballistic missiles, which could potentially be loaded with viruses or gases and hit targets as far away as 93 miles. An internal report from the Iraqi National Congress...
...Arab air force is likely to be much of a threat to Israeli cities, while if Saddam Hussein chooses to blow his cover by launching the handful of ballistic missiles he has kept hidden all these years, they are unlikely to do much damage. In 1991 the 50 Scud missiles fired into Israel frightened many but killed nobody. Even if Iraqi missiles have nerve gas or anthrax warheads, they are unlikely to kill more than a few. The theoretical potency of agents like VX--one tiny drop kills--or anthrax is defeated by the mechanics of distribution and dilution...
...says Sen. Joseph Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "It complicates significantly the actions we take or contemplate taking, particularly with regard to Iraq. The last thing we need is Saddam Hussein concluding that if we were to move on him he will direct the few Scud missiles he has with biological and chemical weapons at Israel and start a general Middle East...
Another problem for would-be invaders is how to deter Saddam from launching any biological, chemical or radiological weapons he may have mounted on Scud missiles. "If Saddam feels it's the end, the constraints that acted on him last time wouldn't this time," says an Israeli diplomat. Israeli leader Ariel Sharon expressed this fear to Bush during his visit to Washington earlier this month...