Word: weaponeering
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...years the U.S. has tried to convince the rest of the world that its dropping of the bombs that incinerated Hiroshima and Nagasaki was an aberration. What's more, the linchpin in Washington's strategy to limit the spread of atomic weapons is a formal promise never to use them against a non- nuclear-armed state. If the U.S. violates its own policy to nuke Iraq, which by all indications does not yet have the Bomb, other countries might rush to develop atomic arms and possibly to use them. At the same time, revulsion over America...
...remain. One is what Saddam intends to do with the air force he has taken such care to keep intact by keeping his planes hidden in bunkers. Some American analysts suspect he will never use his jets in combat but will save them to wield as a postwar political weapon. In this view, the dictator knows he is going to be driven out of Kuwait but expects to survive still holding power in Iraq. If he throws the planes into the battle for Kuwait, they will only be shot down. If he keeps them out of the fight, they might...
Other analysts think, however, that Saddam is saving his air force, and virtually every other weapon he has, for climactic battles later on. The planes could be used for terror attacks on Israeli and Saudi cities, where they might cause more death and destruction than the Scuds have to date. Given the strength of the allied air armada, those sorties would amount to suicide missions for some Iraqi pilots, but Saddam might be able to find willing martyrs. There is some speculation that he is already forming an Iraqi kamikaze corps...
During the first week of the war, the Patriot performed better than had been expected, hitting 95% of its targets as opposed to the 60% experts had predicted. But the system, which was designed as an antiaircraft weapon and later modified to shoot down missiles, is not infallible. Many of the Scuds that got through last week were actually struck by Patriots but not destroyed. Investigators say part of the problem seems to be that Scuds tend to break up as they re-enter the atmosphere. In at least one case, a Patriot struck the tail end of a disintegrating...
...still too early to say whether the Pentagon's grand doctrine of fighting superior numbers with superior technology will ultimately prevail. It may yet be possible to foil the world's most sophisticated -- and expensive -- weapons with countermeasures, some of which are literally dirt cheap. They include burning smoke pots to deflect heat-seeking missiles, draping targets with pictures of bomb craters to discourage further attack, and hunkering down in caves and sand dunes to wait out the blitz. In the end, no electronic marvel is going to liberate Kuwait. That is a job that will probably fall...