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Pentagon Battles Pork Barrel Politics
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15002 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
Date : |
9 / 1988 |
2,682 Words |
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James Arnold Miller
James Arnold Miller is executive director of the U.S. Global
Strategy Council in Washington, D.C. Previously he served in
the U.S. Air Force, where his duties included base closure
planning and public relations. |
Will a bipartisan blue-ribbon commission be able to accomplish something that no one else has been able to do in over a decade? That is, will it make it possible to close obsolete, redundant, or otherwise unless U.S. domestic military bases? Apparently, someone believes so.
On May 3, 1988, Secretary of Defense Frank C. Carlucci established the nonpartisan Commission on Base Realignment and Closure. The goal of the Commission is to develop the criteria for identifying bases for realignment or closure, to review the military base structure, and to recommend which bases to close. The commission was established after extensive talks with congressional leaders. It is charged to report is findings by December 31 of this year.
The team that Carlucci hopes will resolve the battle between the Pentagon and Congress consists of members of both parties who have considerable experience in government and national defense. It is co-chaired by former Alabama Congressman Jack Edwards, who was the ranking Republican on the defense appropriations subcommittee for years and former senator Abraham Ribicoff (D-Connecticut). Other commission members include Russell E. Train, former chairman of the Council on Environmental quality; industrialist Louis Cabot and Donald Craib, Jr.; Martin Hoffman, former Secretary of the Army; W. Graham Claytor, former Secretary of the Navy; and two retired generals, Don Starry of the Army and Bryce Poe II of the Air Force.
Some Bases are Obsolete
So, with such a team, what is the problem? Base closings will inevitably affect some congressman's territory. In the United States there are over 5,000 military bases, forts, shipyards, fields, posts, hospitals, depots, radar sites, and office complexes. Some 300 of these installations are major bases. The Grace Commission on Government Waste, the Government Accounting Office, and the Pentagon have suggested recently that savings of two billion dollars to five billion dollars a year could be achieved by closing or realigning 20 to 30 major bases--without harm to national security. More savings could be realized from closing perhaps hundreds of smaller installations.
Hundreds of bases and other military installations have been closed since the end of World War II, when the United States had a peak of 12 million men and women on active duty. However, there have been no closures since 1977--in fact, 13 have been
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