Lawmakers, Guard officials rally to keep planes in place

Lawmakers and National Guard leaders are uniting to fight what is quickly becoming the biggest national issue in the latest round of base-closing decisions -- the attempt to move aircraft from 28 Guard facilities around the country.

About 40 congressional staffers packed into a Senate meeting room Tuesday to grill Air Force officials about what would happen if Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's recommendations are adopted by the independent Base Closure and Realignment Commission. The meeting was scheduled to last just one hour, but extended into the evening as staffers questioned the officials responsible for the service's BRAC recommendations on the reasoning behind their decisions, a source who attended the meeting said. Air Force officials in attendance included Fred Pease, deputy assistant secretary for basing and infrastructure analysis.

The key concern is that Air National Guard officers were shut out of the Air Force's BRAC analysis, learning at the same time as the general public of the decision to shift hundreds of tankers and fighters and transporters from Guard units to other states.

"It was involved, engaging," one Senate aide said of the lengthy meeting, which was organized by the Senate Armed Services Committee as part of a larger effort to educate staffers on the BRAC process. The source said the Air National Guard issues are "becoming, from a national perspective, the most controversial issue."

Staffers questioned the metrics the Air Force used to determine which Guard stations would lose which aircraft, the source said. Others voiced concerns that the Air Force had no written metrics for some of their decisions, making it difficult for lawmakers to decipher the reasoning behind the recommendations.

The secretary's BRAC list has the support of National Guard Bureau Chief Lt. Gen. Steven Blum, who has said the recommendations would position the Guard to better respond to both state emergencies and homeland security missions, as well as to mobilize for overseas deployments.

Blum, who was involved in the Pentagon's BRAC deliberations, also said he believes changes to the Air Guard and other Air and Army reserve posts will help recruitment and retention, rather than hinder it.

"The demographics that once supported those installations have ... moved to new and different places," Blum told reporters last month. "By closing or divesting [the Guard] of inefficient facilities and moving to places where we have better demographics ... I think we give better opportunity to the members of the Reserve component."

But lawmakers and adjutants general around the country have said they are worried that without aircraft such as C-130 transports and KC-135 tankers, recruitment for the Air Guard will suffer.

Six states and territories might lose all Air Guard aircraft, leaving them with a highly trained force of pilots and engineers who must either relocate or switch to combat support missions.

For instance, at the New Castle County Air Guard Station in Delaware, the Pentagon has recommended moving eight C-130H aircraft to North Carolina and Georgia, making airmen "available for employment at these nearby installations," according to the department's BRAC documents.

Several sources have said they are skeptical that Guardsmen in Delaware and elsewhere around the country will want to travel several hundred miles for duty.

"They literally take the air out of the Air National Guard in Delaware," the state's adjutant general, Maj. Gen. Francis Vavala, said during a Heritage Foundation speech Wednesday.