Legislators on Capitol Hill vowed Friday to resist a recommendation from the Pentagon to close unneeded military bases around the country, saying communities could not afford it and that defense budget cuts could be made elsewhere.
Rep. Vicky Hartzler, R-Mo., a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said proposing domestic base closures was “dangerous.” Many legislators said they wouldn’t support closing any U.S. bases unless the military looks first at Europe, where the Army plans to draw down two combat brigades by 2015. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., said earlier this week that he wouldn’t support closing domestic bases before U.S. bases in Europe were shuttered.
Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said many installations overseas are “relics of the Cold War.”
As the Pentagon tries to trim its spending after a decade of war, its proposal to close or realign bases appeared also to be in part a political move to shift some of the more difficult budget decisions onto Congress, lawmakers and experts said. Some legislators questioned what was behind the announcement.
Under pressure from Congress to cut its budget, the Pentagon on Thursday introduced what it called its most ambitious cost-saving effort in a decade. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta dropped an acronym that always produces intense emotions: BRAC, for Base Realignment and Closure. That’s the labored and often costly process of closing or shrinking unneeded military bases.
But in the past, BRAC hasn’t always proven to be a cost-saving measure. The last round of closures, in 2005, cost billions in closing facilities and transferring people and weapons.
Officials at Mountain Home had no immediate response to Panetta’s budget plans or to another possible round of base closures like the one that took aircraft and personnel from the base in 2005.
Only one other air base in the country flies F-15E fighter jets like the pilots at MHAFB.
At Boise’s Gowen Field, officials don’t know what Panetta’s plans mean, “but we expect to have a better idea in the coming weeks and months,” said spokesman Col. Tim Marsano.
Gowen is the home to the Idaho National Guard. According to published reports, Panetta has said he envisions few cuts in the Army Reserves or the National Guard, which is he described as the nation’s hedge against the unexpected.
Meanwhile, both Gowen and Mountain Home are waiting for a final analysis from the Air Force on potential future F-35A missions. At Gowen Field, at least, it would take a minimum $167 million to ready the air base for a small squadron of the next-generation fighter jets if they were ever to be assigned there.
