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The Defense Department will announce within the next 90 days a realigning of forces overseas that will have a major impact on which bases in the United States will be marked for closure in 2005, according to Raymond Dubois, deputy undersecretary of Defense for installations and environment.

Dubois told the House Appropriations Military Construction Subcommittee on Thursday that the 2005 round of military base realignment and closures (BRAC) would be a "global BRAC." He reiterated his position that this round of base closings could be larger than previous ones held in 1988, 1991, 1993 and 1995.

In those four rounds, about 20 percent of domestic military bases were closed or realigned for a savings of $17 billion. An additional $7 billion have been saved each year since 2001 in reduced operating costs.

Dubois also said that the Defense Department has finalized its criteria for selecting bases to close or realign. As expected, the criteria give the most weight to military value. The criteria were published in Thursday's Federal Register and were unchanged from a draft version proposed in December.

Dubois stressed that the upcoming round of closures will not be simply about saving money, but also aligning the military's more than 400 bases with its new force structure.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has pushed for a sweeping transformation of the military services' structure and operations. Dubois said bases should be designed to support that vision of transformation, which will require more joint and multimission installations.

The ongoing review of overseas bases will have a major impact on forces based stateside. For example, Dubois said, the Army might bring a division, about 10,000 soldiers, home from Germany, and the service would then decide where to base them in the U.S.

Like previous BRAC rounds, the Pentagon will draw up a list of bases to close, and hand it off to an independent, nine-member commission, appointed by lawmakers and the White House, that will come up with a final version. That list must then be approved or rejected in its entirety by Congress and the president.

Dubois said the 2005 plan has several changes from past BRAC rounds, including: having nine commission members rather than eight to prevent tie votes; relying on a 20-year force structure plan instead of a six-year plan for deciding which bases are needed; and creating joint working groups work groups at the Pentagon to consider where services may consolidate common functions. Some areas being examined for consolidation are: intelligence, research and development laboratories, training, and depot operations.

Several lawmakers on the subcommittee peppered Dubois with questions about their bases and what could be done to save them. Dubois said he regularly receives reports from communities about how much they value their bases, but he added lawmakers are often the best spokespeople for their communities.

Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga., said the Defense Department also should consider nonmilitary tenants on bases, such as other federal agencies, that lease space from the armed services. Dubois said that issue would be factored in.

COMMENTS

• It is no wonder why the privatization red herring is in full swing. The big Defense Contractors are lobbying heavily for all of the public sector defense work and support jobs. In fact it is common knowlede where the rubber meets the road that the private contractors are offering active duty officers and enlisted personnel jobs when they get out of the service. When the decisionmaking is left up to the squadron level commanders about who will do the work for them wether it be federal employees or private contractors there is no question that if offered positions with the contractors they will select the contractor to do the work. In the end ,when all the federal employees are finally gone and the U.S. military is at the mercy of the big defense contractors they will be sorry. Union labor, wages and benefits will sky rocket as will cost overruns for the end items and lets not forget that the taxpayers because we all know that the big defense corporations must make a two thirds profit for their shareholders. For these reasons the military will have actually less money to operate with not more as we are told. GovExec.com reader Posted February 21, 2004 1:41 PM
• Further destruction of the in-house capabilities to repair, build weapons would be a serious mistake. The people in the Pentagon need to review the history of war. The Rock Island and Watervliet Arsenals should remain government-owned and government-operated. To contract them out would only end up increasing the cost of acquisition and delay that process. They need to review the quick response times that Rock Island Arsenal has demonstrated in recent events. Which includes Helicopter parts, repair of bridge operations, etc. Another area of concern is the destruction of the government-owned contractor-operated ammunition plants. This destruction has led to the purchase from a foreign source of small caliber ammo. How could we fight a Korean Level War without restructuring and building of our ammo base that President Clinton allowed to be destroyed? I am concerned about our ability to fight a conventional war. Canada learned the hard way when they excessed their ammo production capabilities. Why don't we learn from history? George Nickolas, CPCM Posted February 18, 2004 12:42 AM
• Although the "BRAC statute applies to military installations inside the United States, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Guam, the Virgin Islands, American Samoa, and any other commonwealth, territory, or possession of the United States...", we should not close any CONUS-based installations until we have fully completed the process of reducing our footprint of permanent forces overseas and subsequently closed a significant number of bases abroad. Our permanent overseas forces are largely a result of World War II and the Korean War, and such a force of that size and scope is no longer needed. While we will continue to need sufficient forces overseas with the ability to respond to worldwide threats, we have proven that we can execute very well the appropriate, needed military response using an expeditionary force structure. It is imperative that we actually close (not simply review the closure of) a sufficient number of those bases abroad first before we shut down bases here in the U.S. Let's not send hundreds of thousands of loyal,hard-working government employees to the unemployment lines to join the millions of unemployed already there due to corporate scandals. GovExec.com reader Posted February 13, 2004 8:35 AM