May 22, 2009 3:49 pm US/Eastern
Base In Latest Terror Case Gets Supplies To Troops
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
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Cars sit at the entrance to the New York Air National Guard Base at Stewart Airport, which was one of the alleged targets in a foiled terrorist plot to shoot down planes and bomb synagogues, May 21, 2009 in Newburgh, New York.
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
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James Cromitie, one of four men arrested in alleged plot to bomb Riverdale Jewish Center in the Bronx section of New York and a US Air National Guard Base on May 20, 2009.
AP
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David Williams, one of four men arrested in alleged plot to bomb Riverdale Jewish Center in the Bronx section of New York and a US Air National Guard Base on May 20, 2009.
AP
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Onta Williams, one of four men arrested in alleged plot to bomb Riverdale Jewish Center in the Bronx section of New York and a US Air National Guard Base on May 20, 2009.
AP
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NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg briefs the media on a thwarted terror plot targeting a Jewish temple in New York City on May 21, 2009.
CBS
Stewart Air National Guard base sends supplies to U.S. troops worldwide in massive cargo planes dispatched from its extra-long runway -- planes that would have been shot down with surface-to-air missiles, prosecutors say, if four would-be terrorists had gotten their way.
Stewart's signature feature is an 11,818-foot runway -- long enough to handle the fat-bodied C-5A Galaxy planes laden with supplies and military vehicles and helicopters bound for bases in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.
The New York National Guard 105th Airlift Wing maintains 13 C-5As at the air base, about 50 miles north of New York City. The wing has 1,000 personnel assigned to Stewart.
"These guys are always going on missions," said Eric Durr, spokesman for the state Division of Military and Naval Affairs.
Stewart is set among big-box stores and housing developments outside Newburgh, a shopworn Hudson Valley city of 29,000 people where four ex-convicts were accused this week of plotting to bomb New York City synagogues and shoot down the military transports.
James Cromitie, David Williams, Onta Williams and Laguerre Payen are being held on charges of conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction within the U.S. and conspiracy to acquire and use anti-aircraft missiles.
Cromitie and David Williams are alleged to have driven around Stewart as they looked for a good spot to fire the missiles. They brought along a man they didn't know was acting as a confidential informant for the FBI.
According to the criminal complaint, Williams photographed the airfield and military planes with a digital camera.
Stewart has been a military base for decades. During World War II, it was used as a flight training area for cadets at the nearby U.S. Military Academy at West Point. It became a U.S. Air Force base during the Cold War. The state took over Stewart in 1970 after the Air Force deactivated the base, setting up its dual use as a commercial airport and a military base.
New York officials have been trying, with limited success, to make Stewart into a congestion-relieving alternative to the three major New York City-area passenger airports: Kennedy, LaGuardia and Newark Liberty. Four passenger airlines now serve Stewart, according to the airport's operator, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
Stewart also is home base to another 400 Marine Corps reservists, according to Durr.
It is also used as an occasional landing spot for Air Force One. Presidents, most recently George W. Bush, have landed there on the way to speak at West Point.
At City Hall Friday, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Governor David Paterson honored the local agencies involved in foiling this latest terror plot.
They were joined by NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly in thanking members of the NYPD's Joint Terrorism Task Force and Emergency Service Unit.
(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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