Senator disputes legality of Virginia base closings

WASHINGTON – Sen. John W. Warner, R-Va., on Thursday challenged the legality of a Pentagon plan to move 23,000 military workers away from the close-in Northern Virginia suburbs by 2011 as part of a national defense streamlining proposal.

Warner, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and co-author of the 1990 law guiding the military base closing process, added his influential voice to a chorus of Virginia and Washington, D.C., leaders who testified against the impact of proposed changes at daylong hearings of the Base Closure Realignment Commission.

Warner said Defense officials illegally targeted for relocation military workers in leased office space and in the Missile Defense Agency, Defense Information Systems Agency and National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.

Washington, D.C., Alexandria, Va., and Arlington County, Va., would be among the hardest-hit communities under a plan submitted May 13 by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. The plan would shutter defense facilities nationwide to save $49 billion over 20 years. It calls for the relocation of nearly 6,000 jobs from Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington to Bethesda, Md., and Fort Belvoir in southeastern Fairfax County, Va.

The hearings marked the first opportunity for local leaders to influence the nine-member commission, which is holding 19 such sessions across the country on its way to producing a final list of targeted bases Sept. 8.