Lawmakers Spurn More Base Closures Defense Secretary Says Pentagon Still Hasn’t Seen Enough Savings To Develop New Weapons

Defense Secretary William Cohen wants Congress to let him close more military bases, but many in Congress still are irked by President Clinton’s handling of the last round of closures and are in no mood to comply.

Cohen “will seek additional base closures,” Defense Department spokesman Kenneth Bacon said Tuesday, confirming a week’s worth of rumors and hints.

“I think what you can say for sure is that he intends to look for ways to reduce the base structure,” Bacon said. “… We’ll be looking at depots as well as bases.”

Details of which bases might be shuttered or when won’t be released until the Pentagon completes work on its comprehensive review of post-Cold War defense requirements this month, Bacon said.

Congress approved legislation that began four rounds of base closures in 1988, shutting down 97 sites.

Those rounds touched off political battles that pitted military towns against one another as they tried to keep from losing major sources of income. When Fairchild Air Force Base was reviewed in 1993, Spokane’s business and political leaders mounted an extensive lobbying effort to knock it off a list of potential alternatives to the bases that were proposed for closure.

Since that time, Fairchild has been converted from a home to the Air Force’s aging B-52s to the nation’s largest facility for aerial refueling tankers. Military leaders and elected officials have long maintained the base is secure for the foreseeable future, but a new round of closures could challenge those assumptions.

Some members of Congress, such as Sen. John Warner, R-Va., say they will keep an open mind about a new hit list for bases, and House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, one of the originators of the base-closing process, is “definitely supportive,” said a spokeswoman.

But others lawmakers, including some on key committees, leave little doubt about their opposition to repeating the procedure.

“Does ‘Over my dead body!’ make it clear enough?” Rep. Joel Hefley, R-Colo., said last week when asked about rumors of new base closings. Hefley is chairman of the House National Security subcommittee on military installations.

“I think it’s a terrible idea. I intend to resist this with all my might,” said Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D.

“This is a disservice to the country and the men and women serving in our armed forces. I am concerned and outraged,” said Rep. Sanford Bishop, D-Ga.

Officially, the chairmen of the chief military committees had no comment Tuesday, saying they wanted to be fully briefed. Unofficially, skepticism that Cohen would get very far was the rule.

One of Cohen’s conclusions as a result of the sweeping review was that either bases or more military manpower will have to be cut to pay for a new, expensive generation of weapons like Lockheed-Martin’s F-22 stealth fighter and missile defense technology, Bacon said.

Unconfirmed reports out of the Pentagon speculate that the so-called Quadrennial Defense Review could slice away 50,000 troops or more, plus hundreds of anticipated aircraft purchases.

“Reductions in base infrastructure have not kept up” with other military cuts, Bacon said. While 97 bases have been closed since 1988, that represents only a one-fifth reduction, Bacon said. During that period, military personnel dropped by one-third.

“Congress will have to go through the same choices that the military faced,” Bacon said. It is a question of whether bases “or weapons to make our troops more effective in battle” are more important, he said.

Bacon said that only about $14 billion in savings had come, so far, from the first rounds of closings.

, DataTimes