National Guard leaders criticize Pentagon base closing proposals

In an unusual move, New Hampshire's adjutant general, who stands to gain from this round of base closings, on Wednesday criticized the Pentagon's decision to strip a significant number of airframes from 28 Air National Guard facilities.

For many lawmakers and communities, the Defense Department's base closure and realignment process has spurred a defend-at-all-costs mentality as they fight to save local bases deemed by the Pentagon to be irrelevant to future missions.

However, the National Guard has railed against Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's decisions on Air National Guard units in part because of a growing fear that the Air Guard could evolve into a grounded force.

Adjutants general across the country also have criticized the Air Force for shutting them out of base-closure discussions, which Rumsfeld eventually adopted in the BRAC list he released last month. In contrast, the Army National Guard took part in several of the Army's BRAC deliberations, sources have said.

"I don't believe the New Hampshire gain is in the best interests of the Air Force," Maj. Gen. Kenneth Clark said Wednesday at a Heritage Foundation event.

Under Rumsfeld's recommendations, New Hampshire would receive four KC-135 aerial refueling tankers from Southern California. Clark later said the Air Guard's trust in the Air Force had plummeted when it was not consulted during more than two years of base-closure reviews within the Air Force and the Pentagon.

"You maybe don't have the partnership you thought," he said.

Clark was joined by Delaware Adjutant General Maj. Gen. Francis Vavala, who could lose his fleet of C-130 aircraft should the independent BRAC commission endorse the Pentagon recommendations. National Guard leaders in all U.S. states and territories voted last month to unite against the recommendations -- whether they were winners or losers in the BRAC round -- said Vavala, a vice president of the Adjutants General Association of the United States.

"This is the message coming from all 54 of us," Vavala said.

Retired Brig. Gen. Stephen Koper, president of the National Guard Association of the United States, said he does not oppose the BRAC process in general, but believes the Air Guard was the victim of a "drive-by shooting." Koper added his organization is "going after a flaw and that flaw is in the Air Force."

Daniel Else, a national defense specialist at Congressional Research Service, said the principal objection raised by the Air National Guard appears to be the Air Force's BRAC process, rather than its ultimate decisions.

"The nub of it, the core of it, is they were not in on the process and that is where all the power lies," Else said.

The National Guard now has turned its attention to the BRAC commission in an attempt to persuade it to alter the Pentagon's recommendations before it submits its own list of base closures to the White House by Sept. 8.