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USN to base Nuke Flattop in Japan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States for the first time will base a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in Japan starting in 2008, the U.S. Navy said on Thursday, after the only country ever hit with atomic bombs dropped its long-standing resistance to the move.The oldest aircraft carrier in the U.S. Navy, the USS Kitty Hawk, is based in Japan in order to keep a nonnuclear-powered carrier there, but it is scheduled to be decommissioned in 2008. Keeping an aircraft carrier permanently based in Japan has been an enduring element of U.S. security strategy in the Pacific. Japan, whose cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were devastated by U.S. atomic bombs in 1945 at the end of World War Two, had been reluctant to serve as a base for nuclear-powered warships. Japan has been a staunch opponent of nuclear weapons. Posted by: Snese Grearong7094 2005-10-28 |
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