WEEKLY SENATE UPDATE

In August, the President announced a force restructuring plan that will return between 60,000 to 70,000 uniformed military personnel to our domestic facilities over the next ten years. I believe the President’s initiative to streamline our forces and reassign our military assets where they are most needed is appropriate as the threats we face today are unlike any we have witnessed before. Until the Defense Department has first estimated both the current and future force strength requirements of our military, closed those unnecessary U.S. facilities abroad, and calculated those cost savings, we should not begin another base closing round.

Even the Secretary of Defense who oversees the BRAC process has been inconsistent in discussing base closings. On September 23rd, Secretary Rumsfeld testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee that the global posture decision process and BRAC are tightly linked and, indeed, depend on each other. According to the Secretary, the progress made to date on global posture enables Defense Department to provide specific input on overseas changes for BRAC 2005.

But then, the Secretary of Defense, on several occasions, referred to this plan as "theory." For example, when asked as to when he expected to implement the Global Posture Review Plan - the plan for closing overseas bases - and when he expected the re-ordering of forces to be complete, the Secretary responded, "Well, I can give you a short, general answer, and it is that I don't know. What we have to do is, we have a theory as to where we'd prefer to be arranged, and with what countries, and in what ways. We have other choices. We have options. We'll go to those first choices first. And if we can get an arrangement that's satisfactory in terms of usability and cost, we'll do it. If we can't, we'll go to our second choice and work that out. And we'll call audibles as we go along. And it will play out probably over a period of six to eight years, is my best guess."

When we are talking about closing domestic military facilities forever, we should hardly start from a position of a "best guess" or "I don’t know." We need to know the facts. We need to understand how we will continue to combat a determined and ruthless enemy that has already murdered over 3,000 Americans with combatants located around the world. Where will these returning troops be stationed. Where will any proposed additional troops be housed. Until we have these answers, we should not go forward with another base closing round.

In May, I cosponsored an amendment with Senators Lott (R-MS), Dorgan (D-ND) and Feinstein (D-CA) to the Senate Defense Authorization bill that would have delayed the 2005 Base Realignment and Closing Process (BRAC) for two years to focus the base closing process first on our overseas military installations. While our amendment was narrowly defeated by a vote of 47 to 49, a companion amendment was included in the House version of the bill. Unfortunately, the provision to delay BRAC was stripped out of the final bill allowing this round of base closings to continue.

I believe this decision to allow BRAC to proceed was unwise, premature and ill-advised. A delay would have given us essential time to determine and understand not only where and how these returning troops will be stationed domestically, but where the Congressionally-approved additional active troops will go as well. It is logical that in defending our national security we must maintain our military facilities - particularly those that are strategically located and best able to respond to any future threat. We cannot forget that to date, 49 bases in the Northeast alone have been lost to BRAC. New England, the region closest in the U.S. to the European continent, has experienced almost a 50 percent reduction in military infrastructure under BRAC. As our world has changed since the attacks of September 11th, most Americans expect to see an increase in our defense resources not a reduction.

This nation must maintain the military infrastructure it will need in the years to come to support the war on terrorism. We must not degrade the readiness of our armed forces or our ability to defend the homeland by closing more U.S. bases - certainly not at this time. Certainly not without the information and analysis our military needs and deserves.

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