Battle Lines Drawn on Ft. Irwin Growth : Cheney Wants Room for Military Maneuvers, Foes Mobilize for Fight

Warning that the military is running out of room to maneuver, Defense Secretary Dick Cheney on Thursday affirmed his support for the expansion of Ft. Irwin in the Mojave Desert, a project opposed by miners, homeowners and those concerned about the fate of the vanishing desert tortoise.

After observing a mock battle on this vast Army post northeast of Barstow, Cheney addressed the controversy briefly during a 10-minute news conference. He said he is hopeful that the Army can acquire an additional 260,000 acres while protecting the endangered tortoise and accommodating other competing interests.

“We’re always worried about the interface of our military bases and the local people,” Cheney said. “I also think it’s important to remind everybody how enormously valuable these facilities are. There are very, very few places where we have the opportunity to exercise like we did here this morning. . . . And that is essential in terms of our military readiness to do what it is the country expects us to do.”

Without elaborating, Cheney said: “I don’t see why we cannot on the one hand protect our species and also . . . maintain our military capability, which is pretty important.”

Cheney’s remarks came at the end of an early morning visit to Ft. Irwin, one stop on the secretary’s tour of military facilities in the West. On Wednesday, Cheney visited the U.S. Marine Corps base at Twentynine Palms; today, he travels to the Navy’s Trident submarine base in Bangor, Wash.

Perched on the edge of Death Valley, Ft. Irwin is the home of the Army’s National Training Center, which opened in 1980 to train mechanized and armored battalions of soldiers in fighting tactics.

Units from throughout the country rotate through the center and fight mock battles against an opposing force of “Soviets” stationed permanently at Ft. Irwin. The rugged terrain and wide open spaces on the 632,000-acre base--where notorious battle sites are given nicknames such as “Siberia” and “Valley of Death”--are considered ideal for such games.

But advances in weaponry and a belief that larger numbers of troops must be trained simultaneously have sparked a desire among Army commanders to see Ft. Irwin grow.

The increasing speeds of modern planes and tanks demand larger battle zones, and experts say more room is needed to train a full, three-battalion brigade of troops--up to 5,000 men and women, including support personnel--to simulate realistic conditions. Only units made up of 3,600 soldiers can now engage in exercises at one time, the Army says.

Mock Battle

“If we can train a brigade-size task force it will certainly benefit our preparedness, because the military elements should really practice the way they would fight,” said Capt. Jim Boling, whose 2nd Armored Division from Ft. Hood, Tex., is in training at Ft. Irwin and fought the mock battle witnessed by Cheney on Thursday.

“The lethality of the battlefield has also increased, with the ranges of vehicles and weapons growing,” Boling said.

An assortment of opponents, however, are mobilizing to fight the proposal. Among the most vocal have been environmentalists, who say the expansion of Ft. Irwin would consume habitat that the imperiled desert tortoise cannot afford to lose. Biologists estimate about 70% of the acreage targeted by the post is home to the tortoise, which has declined precipitously in number and recently was granted emergency endangered species status by the federal government.

Although the Army has suggested erecting fences to keep tortoises out of major battle areas, environmentalists say that won’t work.

“It’s just an absurd idea,” said Jim Dodson, a Sierra Club leader in Lancaster. “Let’s face it, the tank is the biggest off-road vehicle there is, and tanks and tortoises don’t mix.”

There are also three areas in the proposed expansion zone that many conservationists hope to see designated as wilderness--closed to mechanized vehicles. Sen. Alan Cranston’s California Desert Protection Act, now pending in Congress, would provide such protection.

Dodson added that the Army’s record as a steward of the Ft. Irwin environment has been poor, raising the question of whether it should be given more land to manage: “I don’t think there’s been much effort at all. Basically you’ve got a lot of big dust bowls out there.”

Miners are another foe the Army must overcome. There are several thousand claims within the area Ft. Irwin hopes to acquire, and under federal law they would be off-limits if absorbed by the post. In addition, a handful of active sand and gravel pits lie in the area, and small gold mines are scattered throughout it.

About 50 residents would also be displaced if Ft. Irwin grew. Karla Swanson, who is overseeing the expansion proposal for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which owns much of the land sought by the Army, said most of the homesteaders “like living way out in the middle of nowhere and don’t want to move.”

Utility Lines

Many off-road vehicle enthusiasts are not happy either, worried that roads and trails now open to travel would be closed.

Finally, some major utility lines cross the expansion area, including several high-voltage lines owned by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power that bring electricity to Los Angeles from Hoover Dam.

“We don’t think they would have to relocate, because the Army has said they could work around the lines and protect them from aircraft,” Swanson said. “But we’d like to reserve that corridor for use by future utility lines, so there is an issue there.”