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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (April 17, 1997)
-m T The Battalion INation 'b Thursday Page 5 April 17, 1997 omber flies once more B-2 stealth bomber The B-2 was designed to be able to reach deep into enemy territory and attack heavily defended targets - and then return safely - because it is difficult to detect in flight. It has no vertical tail surfaces and its skin absorbs, rather than reflects, radar signals. p Length: 69 ft. Wingspan: 172 ft. Height: 17 ft. Weight: 100,000- 110,000 lbs Engines: Four General Electric F118 turbofans I Source: Jane's All The World's Aircraft WHITEMAN AIR FORCE BASE, Mo. (AP) —The Air Force will re sume training missions in its B-2 stealth bombers after grounding the planes earlier this month when an engine shaft assembly broke in flight. No defects were found in other engine shaft assemblies, but the Air Force planned more frequent in spections and the re-engineering of the part to make it stronger, officials said Tuesday. Missions involving Whiteman Air Force Base’s 13 bombers had been suspended since April 8 after one plane’s assembly—connecting an engine to a gear box that powers generators and hydraulic pumps — broke in the air. The $2 billion plane was able to return safely using its three other engines. An investigation revealed that the housing of the shaft assembly had nearly undetectable cracks that caused the shaft to turn in a slight ly elliptical pattern rather than a cir cle, the Air Force said. “The shaft is supposed to be turn ing at 14,000 rotations per minute,” Whiteman spokesman Capt. Bruce Sprecher said. “It’s supposed to go in a perfect circle; it doesn’t take an el lipse at that high speed.” Missions were scheduled to re sume Tuesday. This month, six of the B-2s be came part of a Pentagon’s nuclear war plan, meaning they could be asked to deliver nuclear weapons. The flying-wing B-2 bomber was designed to be able to reach deep into enemy territory and attack heavily defended targets. It has no vertical tail surfaces and its skin ab sorbs, rather than reflects, radar sig nals, making it difficult to detect. ities learn about terrorist weapons Program allows local ^emergency workers to \deal better with -^hostile warfare. I WASHINGTON (AP) — As the pniversary of the Oklahoma City XI imbing nears, the Pentagon has igun a training program designed help 120 cities deal with the po- ;; ntial terrorist use of chemical, bi- ; r ; ogical or even nuclear weapons. V) Local police, firefighters, medics M id other emergency workers will M am to identify such deadly A eapons, deal with victims and car- >J [out any decontamination that r ight be required, officials said | ednesday at a Pentagon briefing. Under this year’s $42.6 million pi : ram, the military will set up a ' liulti-service “Chem-Bio Quick ^lesponse Force,” of up to 500 peo- |Mle.Members of the force will trav- \ |elaround the country training lo cal officials, and the Pentagon l^lansto set up a hot line and an In- iecb temeisite w it;h further help. Spe- 'M'lmalizeA training also will be done at some military installations. The commander of the Army's hemical Biological Defense Com- land, Maj. Gen. George Friel, will be i charge of the training program. ysiO[ Ji e i j s b asec i a t Aberdeen, Md. Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., a mem- Jrofthe House National Security ommittee, who has pressed for ich help for local authorities, died the Pentagon program “a )od step ... long overdue, but it’s )t enough.” "The first responder to terrorism not the military,” Weldon said. “It’s the 1.2 million men and women across the country .... who day in and day out respond to dis asters.” He said local emergency workers, many of them volunteers, could be overwhelmed before fed eral assistance could arrive. Carl Hooker, deputy chief of the Houston Fire Department, wel comed the program. “There’s no way cities can prepare properly for some thing like that,” Hooker said in an in terview. “No ques tion about it, it will make us more se cure in dealing witli a terrorist event.” Pentagon offi cials said the train ing will be coordi nated through the Management Agency and make use of experts from the FBI, the Public Health Service, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Energy Department. But since the military has had ex pertise in dealing with chemical weapons since World War I, the Pen tagon will take the lead in the train ing, officials said. By Oct. 1, 27 cities will be as sessed for setting up the initial pro grams. Over the next three years, the officials said, they hope to reach the nation’s 120 largest cities — if those cities want to take part. Each city’s needs are different, the officials noted, citing security steps Atlanta took for the Olympics and Washington’s preparations for the inauguration. Denver offered to be the pilot city for the program, and a team arrived there Monday to assess its needs. By the time leaders of the world’s top industrialized democ racies gather there for an econom ic summit in June, the initial train ing work will be well on its way, the officials said. Besides Denver, the next eight cities to be studied are New York; Los Angeles; Chica go; Washington; Houston; Kansas City, Kan; San Diego; and Philadelphia. The remaining cities are Detroit; Dallas; Phoenix; San Antonio; San Jose, Calif.; Balti more; Indianapolis; San Francisco; Jacksonville, Fla.; Columbus, Ohio; Milwaukee; Mem phis, Tenn.; Boston; Seattle; Atlanta; Honolulu; Miami; and Anchorage, Alaska. The FBI decided which cities needed to be looked at," the offi cials said, but any community can request assistance. Congress approved the pro gram in last year’s defense budget, and the Clinton administration is seeking $48.7 million to pay for it in fiscal 1998. Federal law prohibits the mili tary from participating in law-en forcement activities, such as con ducting arrests or doing investigations. However, it does not bar the military from providing training or assistance to law en forcement agencies. Bill faces opposition AUSTIN (AP) — A central part of a House plan to lower local school property taxes will face opposition in the Senate, according to a key lawmaker. House members cheered a spe cial committee Wednesday after it voted 11-0 on a bill lowering local school property taxes by about $2.5 billion a year. Gov. George W. Bush, who raised the property tax issue more than a year ago, said the bill accomplishes his goals of cutting taxes and spread ing the burden of school funding more evenly across the state. To pay for the tax cuts, the House committee voted to expand the state business tax to most compa nies, increase some other taxes, in cluding those on cigarettes, and add about 30 goods and services to the list of those subject to state sales taxes. It also would use $1 billion in additional state funds and proceeds from the lottery for schools. Another provision of the bill would replace local school taxes on business property with a state busi ness property tax. The legal limit on that tax rate, now $1.50 per $100 in property val ue, would be lowered to $1.05 per $100 for school operation and maintenance. Residential property still would be taxed locally for maintenance and operation and local school dis tricts could tax business and resi dential property up to 50 cents per $100 to pay off debt. ' Armbrister, D-Victoria, is chair man of a special Senate committee that would consider the plan if the full House approved it. He called a state business property tax a problem. “It’s not the rate, it's not the amount, it’s where you take all of a district’s commercial property and ... pool the levy off of that commer cial property into Austin to be re distributed out to a statewide basis. School districts don’t like losing that,” he said. Rep. Paul Sadler, D-Henderson, chairman of the House committee, said the state business property tax is a key part of the bill because it gets rid of the so-called Robin Hood school funding system. “You can’t cut property taxes without getting rid of Robin Hood,” Sadler said. The provision is being opposed by some business and school gr oups. 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