Advertisement

Hope, Fear for Some Military Bases

Share
Times Staff Writer

Since the Pentagon began methodically trimming its network of military installations after the Cold War, one part of the process has remained grimly consistent: Nearly any base on the proposed closure list has been doomed, and subsequent review has rarely changed the outcome.

But a surprising amount of suspense surrounds the latest Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission as it prepares to vote this week on the fate of 837 facilities around the country, including 33 major bases the Pentagon wants to close.

To an unusual degree, members of the panel have sharply questioned the rationale behind some of the military planners’ life-or-death recommendations for bases, fueling predictions that they may be poised to make significant changes.

Advertisement

“They are certainly showing signs of being more willing to buck the department’s recommendations than previous commissions,” said Jeremiah Gertler, a staff member on the last base-closing commission.

The speculation is infusing the panel’s Washington meetings with a mixture of hope and fear -- hope among backers of bases targeted by the Pentagon that they might somehow be spared; fear among supporters of once-safe bases that could be whacked instead.

California, which got off comparatively easy in the Pentagon’s spring recommendations, is struggling to preserve the Defense Language Institute and the Naval Postgraduate School, both facilities in Monterey that were added to the list by the panel last month to the dismay of state and local officials.

Underscoring the possibility of significant differences, members of the base-closing commission in recent hearings have challenged the Bush administration’s projected cost savings and strategic justifications for removing most of the active-duty military from the Northeast.

When the Pentagon offered its list in May, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said he did not make a single change, out of fear that it would unravel a plan to cut costs while transforming military capabilities.

Commenting on Rumsfeld’s statement May 16, commission Chairman Anthony J. Principi said, “I don’t see it as stopping us in any way” from reaching different conclusions.

Advertisement

After a hearing Saturday, retired Gen. James Hill, a commission member, said most of the Pentagon recommendations were “for the most part really well made.” But he added, “We’re not going to bless it all, I suspect.”

Rumsfeld repeated his warning Tuesday on leaving the recommendations intact, describing criticism of the Pentagon plan crafted over 2 1/2 years as “marketing data from various states.”

“I looked at it and said that it would be risky for me to try to second-guess all of that ... because I hadn’t spent the 2 1/2 years doing it,” Rumsfeld told reporters at the Pentagon.

Nevertheless, some insiders believe that the commission could revise one-fifth of the Pentagon’s closure recommendations and substantially change an additional one-fourth -- altering nearly half of Rumsfeld’s proposals. Customarily, substantial changes have amounted to no more than 15%.

“If the administration wanted a rubber stamp, they really picked the wrong commissioners,” said military analyst Loren Thompson.

In a July 19 hearing, the base-closing panel took the unusual step of adding the Navy’s premier East Coast aircraft carrier training center, the Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia, to its list of potential cuts, citing encroachment by the surrounding community. The panel is considering reopening Cecil Field Air Station in Florida, closed in the 1993 base-closure round, to replace it.

Advertisement

“To bring a base onto the list and to set up a competition between an existing base and one that was already closed ... is unprecedented,” Gertler said. “It’s the commissioners taking a very broad view of the commission’s job.”

One potential target for change in the Pentagon’s plan is the proposal to close or dramatically cut four major bases in New England. The Pentagon blueprint would cut 16,000 jobs at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard and Brunswick Naval Air Station in Maine, Otis Air Guard Base in Massachusetts and New London Submarine Base in Connecticut.

Commissioners have expressed sympathy for the arguments of New England officials who say the “demilitarized” region would be more vulnerable to terrorist and missile attacks and that residents would have little stake in supporting or sending their children to join a military that had fewer connections to their lives.

“I remain very concerned with the recommendations to close just about all remaining military facilities in the Northeast and New England particularly ... virtually abandoning that section of the country from our operating base,” Principi said at the July 19 hearing.

Another theme sounded by commissioners in recent hearings is that some of the Pentagon’s cuts, designed to save $48.8 billion over 20 years, are not worth the trouble. A July 1 critique of the plan by the Government Accountability Office concluded that much of the savings came from counting positions that would be transferred to other bases.

“It doesn’t appear to us the savings are real,” commission member Philip Coyle, a Californian, said at the hearing Saturday.

Advertisement

The panel, including Principi, appeared to have tipped its hands on that point, said Steve Grundman, who served as deputy undersecretary of Defense for installations during the Clinton administration.

“That makes me think there is a consensus developing to turn back some of the secretary’s recommendations -- that whatever cost savings are to be gained are not worth it,” Grundman said. “I would guess that some of those cost savings will be turned back on that basis.”

In cuts from 1988 to 1995, 29 California bases were closed, costing 93,000 jobs. Proposed cuts this year are light by comparison. If the proposed transfers and closures are completed, California, which has nearly 200,000 military and civilian defense jobs, would lose 2,018.

The tally does not include the Defense Language Institute and the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey. Neither was on the original Pentagon closure list; they were added later by members of the review panel as an option. The panel is reportedly considering merging the Navy school and an Air Force school in Dayton, Ohio.

The panel could begin making decisions on the California bases in votes today. But California officials expect the Monterey schools to survive.

“That’s because the hard work was done before the original list came out and California did quite well at that time,” said Vince Sollitto, a spokesman for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. “The commission is reviewing that work, but appears to agree.”

Advertisement

The base-closing commission must deliver its final report to President Bush by Sept. 8. Bush may either forward it to Congress or send it back to the commission with his own recommendations. In that case, the panel would have to resubmit its report by Oct. 20, and Bush would have to send it to Congress by Nov. 7. Congress would have 45 days after it received the report to approve or reject it, but it could not change it.

One wild card in the process is a group of lawsuits by several states challenging Air Force plans for a major restructuring of the Air National Guard. In Philadelphia on Tuesday, U.S. District Judge John Padova heard arguments in a lawsuit filed by Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell challenging cuts at an Air National Guard base in his state. Padova issued no decision, however, allowing the work of the base-closing commission to continue.

Advertisement