Lawmakers weigh fate of Walter Reed

The former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said Thursday he wanted to accelerate construction projects at two other Washington-area military hospitals, which would absorb Walter Reed patients when the facility closes in 2011. Doing so would provide a "seamless turnover" for wounded troops, Warner said during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the Army's fiscal 2008 budget proposal.

Warner also warned against overturning the base closure law to keep Walter Reed open, arguing that it would be a precedent-setting move that would spur lawmakers to try to halt other base closings. "I think it makes great sense," acting Army Secretary Preston (Pete) Geren said of Warner's proposal.

The House Appropriations Committee on Thursday approved an amendment to the fiscal 2007 supplemental spending bill that would delay Walter Reed's closure until the end of the war. It passed as part of a manager's package of amendments.

"This was a dumb, dumb thing," Rep. Ray LaHood, R-Ill., the amendment's sponsor, said of the decision to close Walter Reed. Many of the base closing decisions "were dumb," he said, "but this was the dumbest."