| Show NATIONWORLD Saturday February The Salt Lake Tribune Air Force Threatens Base Closures Leader Says Budget Problems Strain Personnel Operations TRIBUNE STAFF AND NEWS SERVICE REPORTS ORLANDO Fla With the Clinton admin- istration and Congress at odds over another round of base closings the acting Secretary of ) - the Air Force threatened Friday to close bases 'on his own if lawmakers dont cooperate Republicans on Capitol Hill have accused Clinton of interfering in a 1995 decision by the " Base Closure and Realignment Commission to close McClellan Air Force Base near Sacramento Calif and Kelly Air Force Base near San Antonio Since then GOP members and many Democrats have said they would balk at more base closings events that frequently prove politically difficult for lawmakers when military facilities in their districts are shuttered Acting Secretary Whitten Peters did not name any specific bases that might be shut- tered but he said mounting Air Force budget problems make more closings necessary Not acting to eliminate unnecessary facilities t would hurt weapons plans and make life harder for personnel he added I have another way of closing bases and it is truly ugly said Peters I can close bases without BRAC right now and the result would ' be leaving behind runways left pockmarked buildings which are rundown no economic redevelopment and no significant environmental cleanup Think again said Rep Jim Hansen through his military aide ' The Utah Republican whose district Hill Air Force base believes Peters would be looking for a job pretty fast if that were to happen according to aide Bill j i Johnson Members of Congress and the Senate represent the people of America And only those members have the constitutional responsibility to raise and support armies and navies Not the Secretary of the Air Force Peters challenge is the toughest to date The president in his 1999 defense budget asked Congress to consider planning for base closing rounds in 2001 and 2005 The administration estimates it can save taxpayers $3 billion by closing more bases But lawmakers complain Clintons promise during the 1996 presidential campaign to privatize Kelly and McClellan amounted to his injecting politics into the BRAC process GOP members say they dont want another BRAC but instead would like the Pentagon to find another system of closing bases This president has proven himself incapable of putting military needs ahead of his own concerns in California and Texas said Johnson Peters made his comments at the Air Force Associations 1998 Air Warfare Symposium in Orlando Hundreds of top Air Force officers have gathered here to discuss the future of the Air Force and most admit privately play a little golf or visit Walt Disney World Peters said the four previous rounds the last coming in 1995 produced cumulative savings of $56 billion To put that in perspective $56 billion n and equates to a wing of Joint Strike Fighters Peters said in his speech to the AFA membership here Friday He added the Air Force at present has too many runways for its people to operate effectively We need to consolidate forces on fewer bases so that when we deploy part of a base to say Southwest Asia there are still enough base-closin- F-2- three-squadro- US Has Let Chemical-Weapon- s "If we cripple this treaty Study Finds Shops Sell Tobacco to Minors folks at home to run the base he said Unless we do this we will continue to have our men and women who are left at home working routine days We must stop such overwork if we are to improve retention Retention of Air Force personnel was foremost on the mind of many of the symposiums speakers during the past two days The difficulty the Air Force has had convincing fighter pilots to resist the lure of a trend has been well growing airline-hirin- g publicized But Richard Hawley commander of Air Combat Command said he also has had problems keeping other key personnel He said for example only 33 percent of 6 crew chiefs were a number the Air Force would like to see at 50 percent or higher Our forces are still very pressured by what I perceive as growing mismatch between the resources we apply to the problem of national security and the force structure available to do the work he said Hawley said he was opposed to spending billions in pursuit of battling new nonconven-tiona- l threats that may never arise We need to pursue capabilities that deal with terrorists and other asymmetric threats to our well being he said But must it come at the expense of those forces that have deterred nuclear war for nearly 50 years and those forces who have made large scale conventional conflicts with the United States unthinkable? The doomsday clock still ticks and it has not been reset to zero I checked the other day and it is at 14 minutes before midnight The threat of nuclear war has not yet been banished We would be well advised to hold onto that deterrent that has served us so well for so 12-ho- LOS ANGELES WASHINGTON tions shopkeepers we shoot ourselves in the foot Amy Smithson Weapons researcher aimed at punishing Russia for selling missile technology to Iran The combined bill is now back in the Senate President Clinton had opposed linking the two Its quite irresponsible that were not moving promptly to complete that legislation said Spurgeon Keeny president of the private Arms Control Association and a former deputy director of the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency Its an important treaty No one is claming that US chemical companies which export $62 billion a y ear in various compounds are making chemical weapons and the Commerce Department does police exports of dozens of chemicals that are the building blocks of chemical weapons Most chemical companies are supporters of the treaty The issue as some see it is one of credibility at a time when the United States is demanding Iraq open its doors to UN inspectors Its not just that were in violation of this er Of the nawho sell tobac- 40 percent sell to young people 18 and younger even though all 50 states prohibit tobacco sales to minors according to a new government study To check the national noncom- pliance rates the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration worked with state officials and teen-ag- e inspectors who entered some 60000 retail establishments and attempted to buy tobacco products Vice President A1 Gore released the study of national retailer compliance rates at tte same time he announced a $75 million advertising campaign to inform retailers and customers about the new require- ments Gore likened waging war against tobacco to running a marathon he recently ran one in which the race gets harder the longer it goes President Clinton and I want to reduce youth smoking by half over the next seven years but weve got to get moving and thats why Congress must pass bi- partisan comprehensive anti- smoking legislation by this summer said Gore One problem the administration and Congress face is that every day more interests line up to get their share of the billions of dollars tobacco companies have offered to pay to end the litigation brought by governments and private plaintiffs Local governments believe their claim is especially meritorious since many pay a share of the costs of their states Medicaid program and also provide health care for the uninsured who often are treated in county hospitals long treaty were trying to tear it apart said Amy Smithson who studies chemical and biological weapons as a senior associate at the Henry L Stimson Center a centrist think-tan- k in Washington Beyond the delay Smithson takes issue with the Senate bill to implement the treaty In it the United States prohibits inspection samples from US facilities to be taken to laboratories outside the country It also allows the president to deny requests for challenge inspections of any facility on national security grounds If we cripple this treaty we shoot ourselves in the foot Smithson said Other countries will not let the United States craft a less stringent monitoring regime than they have themselves With regard to private industry the treaty dual-us-e is mainly interested in chemicals which have legitimate commercial uses and can be found in weapons The chemical thiodiglycol for example is used in ballpoint pen ink It is also ued to make deadly mustard gas The treaty restricts the trade of chemicals such as thiodiglycol Eventually treaty members would be banned from selling such comcountries pounds to The treaty which was ratified by the United States on April 25 came into force April 29 TIMES co products Treaty Slide THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Ten months after the United States joined a global treaty to eliminate chemical weapons it stands in technical violation even as it uses its bully pulpit to criticize Iraqs chemical-arm- s program The treaty known as the Chemical Weapons Convention calls for the destruction of chemical-weapons stockpiles and the monitoring of companies making compounds that can be " used to produce nerve agents and the like It was designed in part to stop rogue nations like Iraq from acquiring chemical agents The Sen-- t ate ratified it last spring but so far the United 1 States has not fully met its treaty obligations It does damage our credibility said Roger Majak assistant secretary of commerce for I would have to say export administration that in our efforts to obtain cooperation from our European allies this issue has come up The United States has provided the international group that oversees the treaty with information on government weapons facilities as required and has allowed inspections of these installations to take place But the United States has not disclosed the chemirequired information on private-secto- r cal production which was due at the end of May As a result inspections at US chemical companies have not taken place The legislation to accomplish this still sits in Congress the hostage of a political battle in which the House combined it with legislation A3 28 1998 E3 Utah Status A report by the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration shows that 35 percent of Utah teens were successful in attempts to buy cigarettes in 1997 The states deadline for reducing the percentage to 20 percent is 2000 and clinics Medicaid is the joint federal-stat- e THE BALTIMORE SUN Acting speedily to get a major constitutional issue settled by this summer the Supreme Court agreed Friday to rule this term on the challenge to the presidents new power to veto individual items in spending and tax bills In a brief order the court put veto issue on a the line-itefast track and set a hearing for an indication that it April 27 expects to rule before the terms end expected in late June Since last summer when President Clinton began using the power granted presidents by Congress to veto parts of spending and tax legislation Clinton has used the authority against 82 items ance-abuse administration m COMPLETE PACKAGE: Two (2) Nights lodging One (1) Day Use o Snowmobile Clothing Breakfast Park Pemil $155 mid week TOLL FREF PROVO I 5741 Please leave message Longer trips available - family specials OR COM Wireless 300 Minutes sr Cellular Long Distance Until May 1998! 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Several wood styies in stock Utah's Largest Selection of ProageCdbUrScmct isaw Sfth Stoat Lnuud time offer S ue hr iwv wnn mtk nnmal qfrrrmni to mmw nlmW tmtamota rrfJufar kmf dutaner frrr mfif Him Votes!aiftini rats pfaas eitod fann pnmotuMl period Wswsd offer Rood off wdodsd firm ten offer 9uta to OHuiar lone disUft auml arrwee agramwm with WoridCow Wmfaaa os nd 100 Fnw cell alar Binwtes enrtud oa Ouual sutawsat Ww abar antgniMM erediu 8ss ttarm far details awd 100 tea !W eritelaa lr wHitton nen op far WorldCons loo staner landhxe aarwa to tsesnw sddttt! 30 minutes rf tew calls! landline pfcm plus a Michael JordaiT cdiecubis phone tad feed to AjrTwrh Ceft MM i M Teak special 5689 Natural cherry special 6229 Lofgrens S Scan Design INTERNATIONAL CONTEMPORARY FURNITURE 3960 South Highland Drive Salt Lake City r 278-44- 1 1 - Mon-F- ri 1 0--7 Sat 1 0-- 6 Veto Clinton as well as the challengers of the line-iteveto joined in asking the court to act swiftly saying that in this years cycle of budget legislation everyone needs to know what role if line-itevetoes are to any play This month US District Judge Thomas Hogan struck down the veto power saying it upset the balance of powers in the federal government by effectively handing over some of Congress legislative powers to the president The court had agreed to decide the vetos constitutionality last year but then chose not to do so because it concluded that the challengers had no legal basis for suing SNOWMOBILE YELLOWSTONE FREE pro- found that only four states Maine Florida New Hampshire and Washington met the governments target of having rates below 20 percent A handful of states had noncompliance rates above 60 Louisiana Connectipercent cut Kansas and Tennessee The study will be conducted annually and the 1997 rates will be used as a point of comparison for future studies High Court to Rule Soon on Line-IteWASHINGTON health-car- e gram for the poor and disabled The tobacco industry is offering to pay billions of dollars as part of a proposed settlement between 40 state attorneys general who sued the industry However Congress must pass legislation for several key provisions sought by the industry to go into effect including the termination of existing lawsuits by governmental entities In the proposed settlement it is unclear whether counties would be paid for their share of tobacco-relate- d health costs However there is no question that the front lines of the tobacco wars will be fought at the local level The new report by the subst- |
