Speaking to reporters after a visit to San Antonio’s Randolph Air Force Base on Saturday, President Bush again urged Congress to consider making the Pentagon the lead agency for relief operations at home whether a disaster is natural or manmade. Congress is doing that very thing, with reviews of legal precedents underway. However, a key question percolating around the Beltway and beyond, is how much can the US military take on? (DR, 09/22/05)
The Air Force awarded a $13.08 billion contract to the Sierra Nevada Corporation on April 26 for its Survivable Airborne Operations Center aircraft, the successor to the service’s E-4B “Doomsday” plane. Like the E-4B, officially called the National Airborne Operations Center, the SAOC will be meant to withstand a nuclear attack and keep…