Kerry Says He'll Prevent 2005 BRAC If He's Elected

SANTA FE -- Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry said he will at least slow the Base Realignment and Closure process if he unseats President Bush in November.

"I've been very clear about the BRAC, and I want you guys to publish it loud and clear, because I've said this many times, I swear, but people haven't seemed to have heard it that clearly -- I'm going to stop the next round of BRAC, for the time being, because I intend to put my secretary of defense and my national security team on the mission of really determining where we are now," Kerry said in an interview with the El Paso Times and a handful of other media during a New Mexico visit Sunday.

Pentagon officials have said that as many as 25 percent of the nation's military bases could be closed in the realignment, with recommendations by an independent commission expected next year. The process is fraught with political consequences, especially in communities that might see their military bases closed or reduced.

El Paso and Fort Bliss officials have said they believe the post could gain a combat division, which would bring in up to 15,000 soldiers and more than double the post's soldier population.

Danny Diaz, Southwest Regional spokesman for the Bush-Cheney campaign, said Kerry was "playing politics with national defense."

"He voted three times for base closures," Diaz said. "This is another example of candidate Kerry wants to stop base closures but Senator Kerry voted for base closures."

Kerry voted in favor of the 2001 bill that authorized the latest BRAC round, but he has said that the world has changed since then. He said he'll need more detailed information as president before he can move forward with plans to eliminate military bases while the nation wages a war on terror.

"I need to be in there," he said in an interview while traveling between Albuquerque and Gallup, N.M., on his campaign train. "I need the latest intelligence. I need the Joint Chiefs of Staff sitting in front of me. I need a level of accountability, which will empower me to make smart decisions.

Retired Army Maj. Gen. James Maloney of El Paso, former Fort Bliss commanding general and a member of the Texas Military Preparedness Commission, said the El Paso-Southern New Mexico region can fare well in base realignment because no military complex in the nation has the combined capacity of Fort Bliss, White Sands Missile Range and Holloman Air Force Base.

"If people understand the Fort Bliss and White Sands complex, and they understand its capacity, that complex will fare very well," Maloney said.

He said the base realignment process would result in "a reduction of real estate, not a reduction in troop strength."

"I think it's a very healthy process, kind of like a debate," Maloney said of BRAC. "And it just makes sense to me to do it."

A leader in New Mexico's efforts to protect its four military bases in base realignment said that even if elected, Kerry may not have the authority to simply bring the process to a halt by presidential decree.

"The BRAC process is established in legislation, so that would have to be addressed," retired Brig. Gen. Hanson Scott said. "A review of the force structure is clearly the mandate of the president. But right now, it's in the law."

Ed Carr, executive director of the Otero County Economic Development Council, said a delayed BRAC process could hurt small communities like Alamogordo, which would have to continue to spend limited resources in an effort to protect military bases.

"That's the problem -- the thought of being under the gun, with the potential for closure, two years from now ... four years from now," Carr said. "That alarms us a little. We'll have to sustain this effort for a protracted period of time."

Carr said that if the realignment process is going to happen, it is better for New Mexico that it happen now, when the state has strong representation in Congress.

"If we're going to have to go through BRAC, let's go through it when we have Senator (Pete) Domenici and Senator (Jeff) Bingaman and Representative (Steve) Pearce," Carr said. Domenici and Pearce are Republicans, and Bingaman is a Democrat.

"We're not overconfident, but we're very proud of our bases," Carr said. "We think if it's truly based on the facts, we'll do well and remain status quo or gain in the BRAC process."

New Mexico is considered one of a handful of battleground states in the 2004 election, so both Kerry and Bush are campaigning extensively in the state. The state's four military bases are key to the state's economy, so both candidates are likely to touch on national security themes during campaign stops in New Mexico.

President Bush is scheduled to visit Albuquerque's Kirtland Air Force Base on Wednesday.

Kerry said the base realignment delay is part of his broader strategy to beef up military strength.

His national security plan calls for adding two divisions to the active-duty Army and doubling the size of the U.S. Special Forces. He said nine of the Army's 10 current active-duty divisions are either in Iraq or on their way to or from Iraq.

"We're not in the same post-Cold War world we were in in 1991 and '92 when the Soviet Union fell and everybody said, 'OK, now we can start folding up a lot of bases,' " Kerry said. "We've got a problem in North Korea; we've got a problem in Iran. We've got a problem with radical and Islam fundamentalism around the world.

"And I want a new assessment, a rapid assessment, from the best minds we have, without ideology, without politics, to make a judgment about where we're proceeding. And I'm not going to close any base or shut down any facility until I have on my desk a plan for America's long-term security and future."

Two more articles on the subject.

Closings Prompt Study Of 2 Bases
(New Orleans Times-Picayune)...Paul Purpura, West Bank Bureau

The state has commissioned a study of Fort Polk and Camp Beauregard, hoping to learn whether the Army and National Guard bases can become home to units expected to be left homeless in the Defense Department's latest round of base closings.

The $100,000 study, scheduled to begin this month, will be done by The Spectrum Group. The Alexandria, Va., firm specializes in base closure and realignment, known as BRAC, said Dell Dempsey, a retired Marine Corps colonel who is director for military and defense affairs at the state Department of Economic Development, which commissioned the study.

The firm already has done studies of New Orleans-area Navy bases and has been hired to represent the city's interests in preventing the Naval Support Activity in Algiers from being closed. There is less urgency regarding the Fort Polk study than the one on the Naval Support Activity, which is considered vulnerable to closure.

"We're looking for BRAC opportunities with this study," Dempsey said.

Retired Army Lt. Gen. Tom Carney, who commanded the 5th Infantry Division when it was based at Fort Polk, will lead The Spectrum Group's study, Dempsey said.

The study comes after the Army announced July 23 that it will move the 3,900-member 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment from Fort Polk to Fort Lewis, Wash., starting next year. The Army also said it will put a new infantry brigade at Fort Polk, a move also scheduled to begin next year. Fort Polk is expected to gain 300 soldiers in the switch.

The brigade will be the fourth in the New York-based 10th Mountain Division, and is one of 10 new brigades the Army is creating to address the demands of the nation's commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army said. That will bring the total number of Army brigades to 43.

But the Army is stationing the brigades only temporarily, knowing that BRAC could change where the units are permanently located, said Lt. Col. Christopher Rodney, an Army spokesman.

"We can't wait for BRAC," Rodney said. "The Army is at war. We've got an (operational tempo) that is straining."

He said the Army knows that BRAC can undo its decisions about where to put the new brigades.

Other brigades will be created at Fort Richardson, Alaska, and Fort Hood, Texas, next year. In the 2006 fiscal year, after BRAC decisions are made, other brigades will be put at Fort Benning, Ga.; Fort Bliss, Texas; Fort Bragg, N.C.; and Fort Riley, Kan., the Army said.

'So many uncertainties'

Retired Maj. Gen. Ansel "Buddy" Stroud, who commanded the Louisiana National Guard and now works as a consultant for the Economic Development Department, said the Army transformation, which included designing, creating and locating the new brigades, has created "so many uncertainties."

"My feeling is that this is an interim move," Stroud said. "This is a short-term solution. I don't think anybody can be absolutely assured of what will happen five years from now."

The Army decided to move the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment to Fort Lewis, near Tacoma, because the unit is slated to become a Stryker Brigade Combat Team. The regiment will be outfitted with the newest fighting vehicles in the Army inventory, known as Strykers.

Fort Lewis "has proven to have the training facilities" for the Stryker brigades, Rodney said. "It only makes sense."

The conversion was to take place at Fort Polk, which already completed an environmental impact study associated with the regiment becoming a Stryker brigade. The Defense Department plans to spend $71 million to upgrade Fort Polk and the England Industrial Air Park near Alexandria to accommodate the conversion. The improvements are expected to continue, officials said.

Stroud said that while he hates to see the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment leave, he agrees with the Army's decision to move it to Fort Lewis.

Attracting new units

How the Army's moves will affect The Spectrum Group study is unclear. In part, the group will study Camp Beauregard, a 12,500-acre National Guard base in Rapides Parish that has live-fire ranges. Because it is state-owned, it is not considered for closure under BRAC, Stroud said. It already has been used by troops on training exercises at Fort Polk, as well as National Guardsmen preparing for overseas missions, he said.

The Spectrum Group, whose analysts include retired high-ranking officers, will look at Polk's and Beauregard's strengths and weakness, and their ability to house units needing a station after base closings elsewhere in the nation, Dempsey said.

The Spectrum Group has studied the Naval Air Station-Joint Reserve Base in Belle Chasse and the Naval Support Activity in Algiers and Bywater. Each study cost about $50,000. The firm, which also lobbies in Washington, D.C., for communities with military bases, has represented Shreveport-area interests in Barksdale Air Force Base since 1995.

The group has not been retained to lobby for the state's interests in other bases. The Legislature recently provided $250,000 for lobbying efforts, but a firm has not been hired.

Retired Marine Corps Maj. Gen. James Livingston, who until recently led the Governor's Military Advisory Board, said the state needs to spend more money to prevent its bases from being closed. By some accounts, the military has a $4.5 billion effect on the New Orleans-area economy and $11 billion on the state economy.

"We haven't put any real money in it," Livingston said of the anti-BRAC efforts in Louisiana. "If we want to retain this $4.5 billion impact, we better throw some real money at it."

Meanwhile, state officials hope to see Camp Beauregard used more formally as a satellite training base for exercises at Fort Polk. Beauregard "can supplement and complement Fort Polk in many ways, as it has done in the past year or two," said Stroud, who commanded the Louisiana National Guard from 1980 to 1997.

He said he thinks Fort Polk's future is solid, in part because it has the Joint Readiness Training Center, which hosts combat exercises for thousands of infantry troops from around the nation each year.

"That is its strength," Stroud said.

Fort Polk is no stranger to base realignments. In 1991, the Army moved the 5th Infantry Division from Louisiana to Fort Hood, but in the same BRAC round, it moved the Joint Readiness Training Center to Fort Polk. The 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment was moved to Fort Polk in 1993.

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Port Gives $65,000 To Aid Region's Military Task Force
(Corpus Christi Caller-Times)...Brad Olson

The Port of Corpus Christi voted unanimously Tuesday to provide the South Texas Military Facilities Task Force with $65,000 for its coming budget year, $15,000 more than in previous years.

The task force, which lobbies Congress and military officials on behalf of the Coastal Bend's military installations, also has requested and received additional funding from several municipalities in the past week in order to hire an additional lobbyist, Retired Vice Adm. Al Konetzni.

But the vote left Nueces County Judge Terry Shamsie wondering why the port received a proposed task force budget for fiscal 2004-2005 before it voted on the funding, while the county received no such information.

Supplementary documents the task force submitted to the port, which were dated July 23, included a strategic work plan and a proposed $250,000 budget for fiscal 2004-2005, including a reference to a six-month contract with Konetzni for $30,000 and $5,000 for expenses.

Shamsie said county officials were not presented with similar documents before they voted Aug. 4 to provide the task force with $50,000, and still haven't seen a task force budget although he has asked for the task force's budget since February.

A letter sent to Shamsie dated Aug. 5 inviting him to Tuesday's meeting has the same work plan dated July 23 in the port proposal, except that the 2004-2005 budget is not included in the letter to the county.

Corpus Christi Mayor Loyd Neal, who chairs the task force, said it was an accident.

He did not prepare the letter and was unsure whether it was sent to others who fund the task force in the same fashion. Neal said the letter was prepared and sent by the task force's local consultant, Gary Bushell. Bushell could not be reached for comment immediately on Tuesday.

Neal said county representatives were provided with that budget Tuesday at a task force meeting, and said the task force did not deliberately keep the information from the county or anyone else.

"There wasn't anything intentional about it," Neal said. "It was just sort of an oversight. There wasn't anything sinister about it."

Neal said that the task force had not produced a budget until July 31 because the county's $50,000 contribution still was uncertain and because both houses of congress were debating provisions that considered eliminating the coming base closure round or delaying it by two years.

Neal said the task force recently has received an additional $20,000 from San Patricio County and has asked the city of Corpus Christi for $65,000, $15,000 more than in previous years. The Greater Kingsville Economic Development Council has pledged another $7,500 on top of the $15,000 it gives annually, according to council officials.

Neal said the added money will allow the task force to hire Konetzni for six months and to have additional funding available to continue his contract if the base closure round proceeds as scheduled.

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