All 425 US domestic military bases are under scrutiny ahead of a forthcoming round of closings by the Pentagon that analysts said could dwarf the previous four rounds of closings combined, The New York Times reported in Sunday editions. "We know we have too much," Deputy Under-secretary of Defence for Installations and Environment Philip Grone told the newspaper. "We know that we have capacity in the wrong place, either over or under. We're not well matched to the mission need."
Local communities are mounting aggressive lobbying campaigns to stave off cuts and other changes, the Times said.
Pentagon analysts are putting finishing touches on a list of recommendations for Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to present to a nine-member independent commission for review in May.
Defence officials asserted the Pentagon had no preconceptions about which bases to close or consolidate, The Times said. Senior military officials said, however, that the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines were likely to end up sharing more bases, laboratories, depots and training ranges, it said.
Defence analyst Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute said the military's excess industrial capacity made bases such as the Army's Rock Island Arsenal in Illinois and Watervliet Arsenal in New York, and the Marine Corps' logistics center in Albany, Georgia - all of which employ significant numbers of civilians - ripe for realignment, the newspaper said.
Rumsfeld will submit his list of recommendations to the commission by May 16, with a final roster of cuts and other changes prepared by the commission due on September 8, the Times said.
Previous base-closing commissions have endorsed 85 percent of the Pentagon's recommendations. President George W. Bush and Congress must then accept or reject the list by November 7, the Times said.
The four previous rounds of base closures in 1988, 1991, 1993 and 1995 eliminated 97 bases and several hundred smaller facilities and reduced overall capacity by 20 percent, according to the Times.