New Move to Close Ft. Ord Is Expected : Military: Defense secretary is set to recommend more than 30 bases for closure. Also on the list is the Sacramento Naval Depot.

Defense Secretary Dick Cheney is preparing to call for the closure of more than 30 major military bases, including a renewed proposal to shut Ft. Ord in Monterey, home of the Army’s 7th Infantry Division, a senior Bush Administration official said Wednesday.

Fifteen months after Cheney sparked a political firestorm by asking Congress for authority to close or shrink scores of bases, the defense secretary has prepared a revised list to be presented Friday to an independent commission assigned to review the proposals.

The base closings and reductions being sought by Cheney are part of an overall strategy to shrink U.S. military forces by about 25% over five years to reflect the reduced Soviet threat and tighter federal budgets. The cuts are expected to proceed despite the tremendous support shown for the military during Operation Desert Storm.

Many of the major base closings to be unveiled by Cheney, including Ft. Ord and the Sacramento Naval Depot, were first proposed in January, 1990, as part of a package of military reductions submitted to Congress along with the Pentagon’s 1991 budget blueprint.

Lawmakers balked at approving the base closings, however, citing the severe economic impact in the affected communities and complaining that a majority of the sites were in congressional districts represented by Democrats.

Congress subsequently approved legislation that revived the Base Closure and Realignment Commission, a bipartisan panel that recommended shutting down 86 domestic military bases in 1988. Those closures were approved by Congress.

The reconstituted eight-member commission, headed by former New Jersey Rep. James Courter, will have until July 1 to accept or modify Cheney’s proposals. It will then submit its own list to President Bush and Congress. Lawmakers will be able to accept or reject the commission’s list, but they will not be able to make changes in it.

According to a report in the New York Times, the list of bases scheduled for closing also includes Whidbey Island Naval Air Station in Washington state, Bergstrom Air Force Base in Texas, the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, Myrtle Beach Air Force Base in South Carolina, the Ft. McClellan Army base in Alabama and Ft. Benjamin Harrison in Indiana.

Among bases that Cheney will suggest reducing in scope are Ft. Devens in Massachusetts and Ft. Dix in New Jersey, the newspaper reported.

The senior Administration official said some of the bases on Cheney’s new list were not among those proposed a year ago. The official would not identify the sites in that category.

According to the Administration official, who requested anonymity, Cheney resubmitted last year’s list to the heads of the military services for reconsideration and revision, and “almost without exception” he accepted their recommendations.

Anticipated defense budget cuts and personnel reductions have created new pressures for closure of some of the military’s oldest and least efficient bases. In the case of Ft. Ord, the planned redeployment of the 7th Infantry Division to Ft. Lewis in Washington state has had the Monterey facility on the endangered list for some time. Ft. Ord is now home to more than 15,000 military personnel; it employs 1,800 civilian workers.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon said Wednesday that the armed services plan to cut more than 60,000 personnel over the next five months in an effort to reduce their rolls from 2.06 million to 1.99 million by Sept. 30.

The proposed reductions will bring the services within 1% of the totals that Congress had ordered last fall. Lawmakers recently agreed to waive the earlier plan because of the Persian Gulf military buildup.

“The reshaping of the United States armed forces continues in light of changes in the world situation and constraints on the resources available for the national defense,” Deputy Defense Secretary Donald Atwood said in a memo released by the Pentagon.

The Army, which has about 745,000 officers and soldiers, will trim 35,000 by Sept. 30, officials said. The Navy plans to go from 579,000 to 573,086. The Air Force will cut more than 15,000 to a force total of 514,000.