White House Said to Drop Support for 75 Stealth Bombers
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NEW YORK — Bowing to budget constraints and a diminished Soviet threat, the Bush Administration is backing away from its goal of buying 75 B-2 Stealth bombers, a newspaper reported today.
Quoting unidentified Pentagon and congressional sources, the New York Times said the Administration’s new aim, the purchase of perhaps 35 Stealth planes, may be in jeopardy. The Administration’s unpublicized stance, which the paper said some legislators were aware of, may add momentum to congressional efforts to cancel the multi-billion dollar program entirely.
Those efforts have picked up speed since the abortive Soviet coup in August and the politically damaging disclosure last month of flaws in the radar-evading ability of the B-2, the newspaper said.
Congress has so far authorized 15 of the planes, and the House wants to stop there. The Senate supports the Administration’s plan to continue building the planes, at $865 million each, including the immediate goal of four planes in the fiscal year that began Oct. 1.
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