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- GRAPEVINE, Page 17Why So Many Scuds Are Duds
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- By DAVID ELLIS/Reported by Sidney Urquhart
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- They failed to provoke Israeli retaliation or spread mass
- terror among Saudis. And now, most embarrassing of all, Iraq's
- Scud missiles are falling apart before they even reach their
- targets. More than 70 Scuds have been launched so far, and
- lately they're breaking up while heading toward their
- destinations. U.S. military men say sloppy Iraqi workmanship
- is at fault. The basic Soviet-built Scud-B has a 180-mile
- range, not enough to hit Israel or Saudi cities from Iraq. So
- the Iraqis have welded on liquid-fuel boosters to produce the
- Al Abbas (range: 540 miles) and the Al Hussein (390). But the
- welds have been so hastily done that the missiles have been
- literally falling apart under the stress of flight.
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