Vice President Dick Cheney visited Offutt AFB, Neb., Tuesday, praising US Strategic Command and 55th Wing personnel and other military personnel for their displays of “courage and character,” which he said are the US military’s “decisive element” not its equipment. He commended “Team Offutt” in its role in the war on terror. The core of his remarks was the sentiment expressed by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to the American Legion, namely that the enemy at hand cannot be “ignored, or negotiated with, or appeased.” (Read Cheney’s remarks here.)
A three-month continuing resolution that ended in December inflicted less pain on the Department of the Air Force than it had expected, as procurement and construction continue in the new year. The federal government operated under a stopgap spending measure that stretched from the beginning of the fiscal year on…