‘Proud Papa’ Defends Base Closings Ritual

The talk, uncountable earnest words of it, has been piling up since March over which U.S. military bases will be sacrificed to the nation’s leaner and meaner post-Cold War defense budgets.

Early this week, in a three-day festival of Capitol Hill palaver, more than 200 senators and representatives--about 25 of them Californians--had a chance to make their final pitches in the rather unceremonious format of back-to-back five-minute speeches to the incorrigibly polite and attentive base closing commission.

Little if any news was committed during this great churning of rhetoric, and little was expected.

“If my (spouse) had to schedule elective surgery,” said a knowing commission staffer, “this was the time to do it.”

The arguments had all been heard before. The Army chose the wrong facility to close. The Navy data is all wrong. It will cost billions to clean up pollution at this Air Force base. Compared to Base X, we are obviously militarily superior. Have you no idea what economic devastation this will bring?

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So what purpose did this seemingly indulgent speechathon have? More than anything, the outpouring of Washington sound bites was a “closing of the loop” in the base closing process.

For built into the process is this fundamental tenet: Give the potential victims every opportunity to defend themselves. Then, if they wind up on the hit list, they can’t say they didn’t have a fair hearing.

This is no minor procedural detail. California, with 15 major bases threatened with shutdown, has an enormous stake in the outcome of the commission’s crucial deliberations. But no one is wagging an accusatory finger at the independent Defense Base Closing and Realignment Commission.

The armed services have been roundly criticized for not getting their heads together to supply more coherent closure recommendations. But the base closing commissioners? No one’s laid a glove on them.

Amazing. But not to Rep. Dick Armey, the father of the 1988 base closing bill.

“I envisioned it that way to make sure that there could be no political reprisals and that everyone could be heard,” said the combative Texas Republican who ousted the more moderate Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Redlands) from the No. 3 House GOP leadership post in December.

“And I’m very pleased with the way it’s working. I felt it was my responsibility to conduct some surveillance (over the process) over the years. The only major intrusion was when (Defense Secretary Les) Aspin took two bases off (the original Pentagon list). The commission was acutely aware that its function could not be tainted the least little bit. And they put them right back on.”

Those two bases were McClellan Air Force Base near Sacramento and the Army Presidio in Monterey, home to the Defense Language Institute--tough medicine for the California congressional delegation to swallow after having congratulated itself on a carpet-bombing lobbying effort to get the sites removed.

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During three days of regional hearings in California, Republican Gov. Pete Wilson and Democratic Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer offered the economic catastrophe mantra: California has less than 15% of the total domestic military and civilian Defense Department personnel, but has endured more than 50% of all personnel reductions as a result of base closures since 1988.

Regrettably, for California at least, such grim economic messages begin to blend together when, at virtually every stop along the commission’s nationwide trek of hearings, similar tales of woe were heard.

“The economic argument? It’s not something (the commission) should be indifferent to,” Armey said. “But nationwide, it’s a wash. The way to offset the pain is getting the best (defense) cost savings in (the) long run.”

Sounding like the economics professor he once was, Armey delivers the bitter truth: “Base closing is a necessary part of public policy--but on the grounds of cost savings and effect on military preparedness.”

Therein lies the real catch in the base closing game. After all the talk, all the pleading, all the technical give and take, there remains a painfully obvious surplus of military bases.

And so the commission will offer up its thoughtful list of selected victims to President Clinton, who will lateral it to Congress, which cannot change it, only approve or disapprove it in its entirety.

“By the time the list is finished, the resistance is whittled down to the relatively very few congressmen getting hit. Oh, yes, it will be approved,” said Armey, sounding like a proud papa.