SHREVEPORT, La. (AP) - Barksdale Air Force Base is likely to add about 750 jobs in the coming year as it increases its focus on flight training and reopens a weapons storage area, Lt. Gen. Robert J. Elder Jr. said.

The Air Force is expected to put a new B-52 squadron in North Dakota, but training should add 300 new full-time jobs at the Shreveport base.

Plans to reopen Barksdale's weapons storage area will add about 500 jobs. Barksdale also is among contenders to be headquarters of the new Global Strike Command, which could add between 750 and 1,000 people, Elder said late last week.

However, he cautioned, that filling the openings may be difficult - something he mentioned when Gen. Norton Schwartz, the new Air Force Chief of Staff, visited the base that week.

"One of the things we told the chief is we're having trouble getting the qualified people we need for 8th Air Force today, so creating new billets doesn't necessarily mean you get more people," he said. "Finding faces to put in the spaces is another problem."

The 2nd Bomb Wing based at Barksdale did well in a recent "nuclear surety inspection" made without advance notice, Elder said.

"That was the first time there was an NSI conducted with no notice, I think, in over 15 years," Elder said. "The fact the unit performed so well with no advance notice is an indication we're back on our game."

Barksdale and Minot, the nation's two B-52 wings, will alternate nuclear and conventional missions - one of the changes made since a series of missteps in handling and oversight of nuclear weapons, including the flight of a B-52 mistakenly armed with nuclear missiles from Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota to Barksdale in August 2007.

"Right now, Barksdale is primarily focused on doing the nuclear deterrence mission," Elder said. "In April-May, Minot will pick up the nuclear mission and Barksdale will focus on the conventional. The No. 1 priority is to reinvigorate the nuclear enterprise, but at the same time they don't want to undermine the great work we're doing in theater operations. So it adds a little bit of complexity to the problem."

Under Global Strike Command, 8th Air Force based at Barksdale will devote itself to the nuclear bomber mission, until now only one of its many tasks.

"We're still trying to sort that out," he said. Elder said it's possible that the biggest change may be that he would be the last three-star general for 8th Air Force.