Posted on 06/09/2005 6:37:49 PM PDT by Righty_McRight
HAGATNA, Guam - Guam and Hawaii are lobbying to be the Pacific homeport for a Navy aircraft carrier, eyeing the thousands of local jobs and millions of dollars it could bring to one of the islands' economies.
The Pentagon is considering moving one of its carriers — it has 12 total — to either Guam or Hawaii to be closer to potential flashpoints in Asia. The pending decision pits two tropical economies heavily dependent on tourism and the military in direct competition for more defense dollars.
Activists in both places have estimated an aircraft carrier would create more than 4,000 local jobs as the ship's 5,500 sailors and their families move to the community. Millions, if not billions, of federal dollars to upgrade roads, schools and other infrastructure also would likely accompany a carrier.
The military has said only that it is considering both locations.
The U.S. territory of Guam, the largest of the Northern Mariana Islands, is a mostly rural island of 160,000 people. Located just a few hours by plane from the Korean peninsula and the Taiwan Straits, Navy and Air Force land covers a third of its 212 square miles.
Adm. Arthur J. Johnson, commander of the U.S. Naval Forces Marianas, said the Navy's presence on Guam provides a powerful deterrent to terrorists.
"If you were a week away or two weeks away, that provides an opportunity to do something," Johnson said. "Just by having the capability in the neighborhood, it forces people, transnational terrorists, to redo their calculus."
This year, the Air Force started rotating F-15s to Guam from Idaho and B-2s to the island from Missouri. Three attack submarines have been based here in the past three years.
But Guam is no shoo-in. Hawaii, about 3,700 miles to the east, is headquarters for the U.S. Pacific Command, whose territory spreads from the West Coast to the Indian Ocean.
The Pentagon also has been expanding its presence in Hawaii, which has more than 1.2 million people, to take advantage of the state's proximity to Asia. The Army plans to move 800 soldiers to the isles for a Stryker brigade, while millions of dollars in infrastructure upgrades are in the pipeline.
Democratic Sen. Daniel Inouye (news, bio, voting record), a ranking member of the Senate Defense Appropriations Committee, has led Hawaii's campaign for the aircraft carrier, stressing its strategic location to Pentagon officials. He said the state's extensive roads, including three interstate freeways linking Oahu's major bases, and an Army hospital give it advantages over Guam.
"I think policy-makers will decide Hawaii is the place," he said.
Lee Webber, chairman of the Guam Chamber of Commerce's armed forces committee, said he and other community leaders have met congressmen, senators and their staffs in Washington over five years to lobby for Guam, which has an unemployment rate just under 8 percent.
"We're a bunch of little island boys ... saying 'Hey, this is what we think. Here's what we have. Come visit us, we like you. And you're welcome here," said Webber, also the publisher of Guam's largest newspaper, the Pacific Daily News.
At least one sailor's vote is going to Hawaii's legendary sun and surf. Lt. Joe Mitzen, a 26-year-old Navy engineer from Nesquehoning, Pa., said he would make a Hawaii-based carrier his first choice for assignment.
"This would just be fantastic — it's a tropical paradise," Mitzen said as the carrier USS Nimitz called on Pearl Harbor a few weeks ago. "How many people can say they live here?"
___
On the Web:
Government of Guam: http://ns.gov.gu/government.html
State of Hawaii: http://www.hawaii.gov/portal/
Thanks !
Lots of folks don't even know that Amerika Samoa exists. Great harbor, and Pago Pago International was built to recover B52s after the Grand Tour, so it's much larger than it needs to be for the once daily flight from Honolulu...
The good news is- the right folks do...and for the best reason.
It's about the same distance (~5000nm) from Pearl or Pago to Beijing. It's a far better harbor than Pearl, protected from typhoons as well as considerable protection from sub-launched cruise missiles -- the harbor is located inside a cinder cone, and takes a dogleg to get into. Also, unlike Pearl or Guam, it has no existing strategic assets, meaning that an aggressor would have to target 3 instead of 2 islands, spread across the Pacific.
I thought those snakes that came in via ship were terrorizing everyone on Guam? At least per TV-never a good source.
HAHAHA! Can you say FOUR!
I am familiar with the layout of Pearl Harbor. I'm just saying from historical perspective, carriers did operate from there.
You might as well hype the "dreaded coyotes eating children in California" non-story as this stupid snake non-story.
See my last about the snake non-story.
Why I think they suck is partially a matter of expectations, and partially a matter of fact.
The expectation is that I want command of Abrams MBTs if I branch armor.
The facts are that Strykers are just not that great of a "medium" armor platform. They're 28% more maintenance intensive thanks to being wheeled vehicles as opposed to tracked vehicles.
They're not very heavily armored (hence why they added those cages). And they don't meet GEN Shinseki's original goal that they be easily deployable from a C-130--especially with their cages attached. Moreover, the Army still has a large number of M113 APCs that would serve and have served just as well; plus they're cheaper.
Sorry, griping about a single line in the article about Strykers.
Even brown snakes know to avoid snake eaters........:o)
But true...brown snake stories are to keep the riff raff off the island.
There was (I assume it is still there) a photo in the Andersen Air Force Base's base operations building of the ramp at Andersen during the peak of B-52 operations during Vietnam. I think I counted over 120 B-52s on the ramp. Today there are only about half that number of B-52's in operational service and another handful used for training.
According to this USGS site, it is not media hype.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.