Word: epping
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...scenes on a face-saving formula to end the spy-plane standoff, because right now it's dangerously deadlocked. President Bush, facing perhaps the most complex crisis of his life, used measured - but obviously exasperated - tones Tuesday to reiterate his insistence that the Chinese send home the damaged EP-3 surveillance plane and its 24 crew members. (There no longer appears to be much point in adding "without further tampering," now that satellite images reportedly show Chinese officials all over it, tinkering with wrenches and the like.) Bush hasn't set any deadlines, although he and his administration are trying...
...officials were expected to meet the crew of the downed EP-3E surveillance aircraft on the Chinese island of Hainan, Tuesday, at least 60 hours after they first demanded access. But even if the plane's personnel are safe and quickly returned home, the fact that Chinese officials appear to have boarded and inspected a U.S. aircraft chock-full of America's top-of-the-line electronic intelligence-gathering equipment could be a major setback for the Pentagon. Although the crew is reported to have begun destroying classified data and equipment, it's not yet clear whether...
After the Chinese F-8 fighter damaged the Navy's EP-3, its 24-member crew went into a destructive ballet - carefully choreographed in advance and practiced numerous times - to ensure the Chinese takeout from this intelligence windfall from the sky would be minimal, Pentagon officials...
...into the sea - might have been expected. The plane carried life rafts and its crews are trained to survive such landings. But even though some military officers are grumbling that the spy plane never should have landed on Chinese soil, most military officers interviewed in recent days think the EP-3 crew made the right choice. "That plane can fly back to Japan on three [of its four] engines," a senior Navy officer said. "So it had to be pretty damaged to limp to Hainan. You have to give the crew credit for saving 24 lives...
...become the strategic focus of U.S. military doctrine - have done little to sweeten the atmosphere in which U.S. diplomats must now persuade their Chinese counterparts to hand back the crew and the plane. Taking a look around the plane will certainly be tempting to the Chinese military, since the EP-3 is on Taiwan's shopping list...