Barack Obama

Plan to close military bases seems certain to take effect next month

Thursday, October 27, 2005

BELLEVILLE NEWS-DEMOCRAT
LIZ SIDOTI
Associated Press

WASHINGTON - A plan to close and reconfigure hundreds of military bases is sailing through Congress, on track to take effect next month in a blow to communities such as Springfield and Rock Island in Illinois that are hoping for an eleventh-hour reprieve.

In a long-shot attempt to halt the first round of base closings in a decade, the House planned a vote Thursday on a proposal sponsored by Illinois GOP Rep. Ray LaHood to reject the final report of the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure Commission. Even base-closing opponents considered the effort certain to fail, like Congress' attempts to stop the four previous rounds.

To kill the process, the Senate also would have to veto the report - and the chances of that are slim to none. In both chambers, opposition has been muted by the elimination of several major bases from the Pentagon's original list of closures and the recent focus on Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

"I can't see anything that stops it," said David Berteau, a military analyst who oversaw base closings for the Pentagon in 1991 and 1993.

Even LaHood acknowledged that he expects the proposed shake-up of the far-flung domestic military network to become law during the second week of November.

"I know that this is an uphill battle," LaHood said. "I've been around long enough to know we'll be lucky to get 100 votes" in the 435-member House.

Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., who led early opposition in the Senate after the Pentagon proposed closing an Air Force base in his state, said the House vote would put the epitaph on a dead issue.

The commission's report includes recommendations calling for moving 15 National Guard fighter jets from Springfield to Indiana, taking more than 600 jobs with them. Another of the commission's recommendations would move tasks from the Rock Island Arsenal to other bases, cutting what could be 1,300 jobs from that installation.

"We are at war in Iraq, we are at war in Afghanistan, but here at home we want to eliminate bases and uproot National Guard facilities to other states," LaHood said. "I do not believe that is something we should be doing while fighting a war."

But the Pentagon, the White House and GOP congressional leaders dismiss that argument. They contend that eliminating extra space will free up money that could be used instead to improve the United States' fighting capabilities.

Andy Ross, a spokesman for Gov. Rod Blagojevich, said the governor is hopeful that Congress will reject the recommendations because "they don't live up to their hype," including a supposed $10 million savings at Springfield.

Also opposed to the recommendations are Democratic Sens. Dick Durbin and Barack Obama.

"I believe that the BRAC report submitted to the president by the Department of Defense is deeply flawed," said Durbin, the Senate's second-ranking Democrat. "The inconsistencies, contradictions and outright violations of BRAC criteria contained in the current report do not advance our national interest, and I cannot support it."

Obama agreed.

"Given the haphazard process by which some of the BRAC commission's decisions appear to have been made, and the unfair treatment I believe the Rock Island Arsenal received in the BRAC process, I cannot support the commission's recommendations," he said.

Among members of Illinois' delegation who are expected to vote against LaHood's proposal are Democratic Reps. Jerry Costello of Belleville and Jesse L. Jackson of Chicago. Costello cites how well Scott Air Force Base did under the report's recommendations and says it would be a waste of money to repeat the BRAC process.

Military analysts also say this may be the last chance the Pentagon has to save money by shuttering bases because Congress likely will resist approving another round of closures given the pain this one caused.

The nine-member commission reviewing Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's plan to restructure the U.S. domestic base network sent President Bush the report in September. It called for closing 22 major military bases and reconfiguring another 33. Hundreds of smaller facilities from coast to coast also will close, shrink or grow.

The commission said the plan would mean annual savings of $4.2 billion, compared with $5.4 billion a year under the Pentagon's original plan.

Rumsfeld had recommended closing 33 major bases and realigning 29 others, but the commission made changes even as it signed off on most of the sweeping plan. In the biggest decisions, the commission voted in August to keep open a historic shipyard in Kittery, Maine, a submarine base in Groton, Conn., and Air Force bases in New Mexico and South Dakota.

Lawmakers representing those states had waged fierce lobbying campaigns to get the panel to spare their facilities. Commissioners denied politics played a role in their decisions.

The panel also crafted its own shake-up of Air National Guard units across the country, choosing not to endorse a Pentagon plan that drew heavy opposition from state governors and was arguably the most contentious issue in the round of base closures.

"Once the commission removed so many bases from the list, they not only caused individual members to reverse their parochial positions, they also removed the concern that the Pentagon messed up the process so badly that it was fundamentally flawed," Berteau said. "They also removed the view that the commission was just a rubber stamp."

As a result, he said, wide-scale opposition in Congress to the plan dropped.

The president signed off on the report and sent it to Congress on Sept. 15. That triggered a 45-legislative day window for the report to become law unless both chambers pass a resolution killing the process.

Congress authorized this round of closures after the White House threatened to veto an entire defense spending bill if the Pentagon did not get the go-ahead.

Since then, the House has consistently supported closing bases.