Bush OKs Plan for Bases, Sending It On to Congress
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WASHINGTON — President Bush endorsed a plan Thursday for closing 22 major military bases and reconfiguring 33 others, leaving their fate to Congress.
Bush had until Sept. 23 to either accept the entire report from an independent commission and send it to Congress, or return it to the commission for further work.
The report will become final in 45 days unless Congress rejects it in full. Lawmakers have never exercised their rejection right, so communities probably have little hope of a reprieve for their bases.
Bush had said that for the process to be “nonpolitical,” the commission’s decision would have to stand.
He got the report last Friday from the nine-member Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission.
The commission said its recommendations would mean annual savings of $4.2 billion, compared with $5.4 billion under the plan it received in May from Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld had recommended closing 33 major bases and realigning 29 others.
The commission largely endorsed Rumsfeld’s vision to restructure the domestic network of military bases to save billions of dollars over two decades.
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