The RIA Novosti news agency Monday cited a Russian air force spokesman as saying the two Tu-160s -- NATO designation Blackjack -- were equipped only with dummy missiles without warheads.

Fiercely anti-American Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was so pleased to host the Tu-160s that he scheduled a personal audience with their crews Tuesday, the news agency said.

RIA Novosti also announced the two bombers would fly back to their home air base in southern Russia from Venezuela's Libertador Air Base on Wednesday, three days later than their originally announced departure date.

"The aircraft will take off from an airfield near Caracas on Sept. 18 and conduct a 15-hour return flight to Russia. Their landing at a base in Engels (Saratov region) is scheduled for Sept. 19," said Russian air force Lt. Col. Vladimir Drik.

The symbolism was very obvious. The United States had infuriated the Russians by sending warships in support of Georgia to the Black Sea, which has been a virtual Russian lake for the past 250 years. So the Russians sent two of their most formidable nuclear bombers over the Caribbean Sea, which has been an American preserve for well over a century.

But the Tu-160 deployments and flights carry a far more ominous message to President George W. Bush and whoever his successor is following November's elections: If Russia permanently deploys its Tu-160s in Venezuela, the United States could be at a greater risk than at any time since the darkest days of the Cold War.

For the Mach-2, 1,380 mph, super-long-range Tu-160s can carry stand-off X-555 cruise missiles with a range of 2,000 miles. That means that from a base in Venezuela, they could "loiter" over the Caribbean for 10 or more hours at a time with a capability of firing their Mach 2.8 cruise missiles that are capable of flying around 1,800 mph at sea level and hugging ground contours so their exact flight path could not be intercepted in advance with a range that could hit almost any target in the entire United States.

Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has let virtually all its domestic defenses against manned bomber attacks vanish. The Blackjacks would fly well "under the umbrella" of even Patriot PAC-3 and U.S. Navy Standard Missile-3 anti-ballistic missiles, none of which are designed for manned aircraft interception. The cold fact is that the United States currently has no missile defense system capable of knocking down a Blackjack missile attack or of preventing a cruise missile launch unless combat fighter aircraft -- which are only a few hundred miles per hour faster than the Mach-2 Blackjacks -- can intercept them.

RIA Novosti described the Tu-160 Blackjack as "a supersonic, variable-geometry heavy bomber designed to strike strategic targets with nuclear and conventional weapons deep in continental theaters of operation."

The news agency cited a Russian air force spokesman as saying the two Tu-160s were equipped only with dummy missiles without warheads.

But, of course, if Tu-160s were to be based permanently at Libertador Air Base, or elsewhere in Venezuela in the future, the missiles they carried might not always be dummy ones.

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