GRAPEVINE

By DAVID ELLIS

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.

With reporting by Sidney Urquhart