Word: terrain
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
There are pragmatic reasons why journalists may, at least subconsciously, have erred on the side of enthusiasm. They want cooperation from military officials, without which any war on this difficult terrain would be almost impossible to cover. And they are eager not to be accused of being so skeptical that they are unpatriotic -- a charge that was widely leveled during Vietnam, arose in Grenada and Panama and is surfacing again...
...could be compounded by a flood of oil from a major refinery, either as the result of a U.S. attack or a decision by Iraq to open the faucets. A single refinery tank can hold millions of gallons -- enough to smear large stretches of the sebkha, the flat coastal terrain where Kuwaiti refineries are located...
Should the ground war start, the biggest technological question mark may be the Army's M1 and M1A1 Abrams tanks, the most advanced armored vehicles ever built. The M1 features a 120-mm gun that can fire accurately even while the tank is running over rough terrain, thanks to a built-in ballistic computer and sophisticated stabilizers. Both models carry a chemical fire-suppression system that can put out a flame in a quarter of a second and are shielded by armor plates containing nonradioactive uranium 2 1/2 times as dense as steel. But some specialists fear that the tanks...
...defense planners consider Iraq's Sukhoi-24 long-range bombers an even greater threat than the Scud B missiles, which are notoriously inaccurate. Iraq is believed to have 25 of the advanced Soviet-made warplanes, which can make the round trip to Tel Aviv without refueling and which boast terrain-hugging radar. If even a single SU-24 slips through Israel's defenses, it can deliver a seven-ton payload with pinpoint accuracy. By comparison, each stripped-down Scud can pack only 662 lbs. of conventional explosives or 331 lbs. of chemical weapons...
...likelihood of combat has risen in the Persian Gulf, where battlefield conditions and terrain would make military assistance a necessity for reporters, distrust between the brass and the press has blazed anew. Despite repeated contacts with news executives who believe they made their concerns clear, the Pentagon has expanded its proposed ground rules for the behavior of journalists on any gulf battlefield from one page to six. Even after a promise of revision following a heated session with about 60 senior Washington journalists late last week, the Pentagon seems firm in its intention: to impose unprecedented restrictions on where reporters...