You
know....I seem to remember the screamin' eagles getting their undies all up in a bunch over the military base closings while Clinton was in office.
"How could he do such a thing?" They cried.
"No republican woud do this to our miltary. No sir!"
Yeah,
bullshit.
Those first base closings were
approved by George the I. They only took place while Clinton was in office. [Isn't that amazing?]
Now guess what? George the II is doing just
exactly what his daddy did: Closing military bases. The lame duck hypocrite. What slime ball this guy is.
Crimony.
To wit:
MILITARY BASE CLOSURE LIST
Relief, joy and outrage
PENTAGON'S HIT LIST
Biggest cuts would come from outside state as military looks to save $5.5 billion a year
- Zachary Coile, San Francisco Chronicle Washington Bureau
Saturday, May 14, 2005
Washington -- California's military bases emerged relatively unscathed in the new round of base closures announced Friday by the Pentagon, with the deepest cuts proposed for military installations in the Northeast.
Several major facilities in the state that were seen as potential targets for closure or realignment -- including Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield and the Defense Language Institute and Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey - - were untouched by the Bush administration's effort to cut costs by consolidating the nation's military bases.
The biggest hit the Bay Area may take is the proposed closure of Onizuka Air Force Station in Sunnyvale, which helps run the military's satellite system. The Pentagon wants to move the station's operations and its 278 employees to Vandenberg Air Force Base, a major launch site for satellites in Lompoc (Santa Barbara County).
Across the nation, the Pentagon proposes to close 33 major bases, realign 29 others and shut down or transfer the operations of 775 smaller military facilities. The Defense Department estimates the cuts would save $5.5 billion a year.
Of all regions, the Northeast appeared to take the hardest hit. The Pentagon recommended closing several huge bases, including Fort Monmouth in New Jersey, the Naval Submarine Base New London in Connecticut and the Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth, Maine.
But California officials celebrated the news that the state would be spared a repeat of base closures a decade ago, which shuttered 29 major military facilities and cost the state 93,000 defense jobs. The new base closures proposed Friday would cost the state about 2,000 jobs.
"This is a good day," said Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Walnut Creek, whose district includes Travis. "There is a lot of relief, first and foremost, that this list is not as devastating as the one we thought might be issued."
Besides the Sunnyvale base, the only major Bay Area facility to face closure is the Concord Naval Weapons Station, a mostly defunct former ammunitions depot. Concord officials have been lobbying to take over the base to develop 13,500 new homes as well as office parks, a shopping center and open space.
"We are very excited, very ecstatic," said Concord Mayor Laura Hoffmeister. "Friday the 13th didn't turn out to be a bad day in Concord."
Some lawmakers whose states or districts are expected to face major job losses were furious Friday. Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe, a Republican, called the proposed closures "outrageous" and "a travesty and a strategic blunder of epic proportions on the part of the Defense Department."
While critics had feared the closures would target mostly "blue states" that voted against President Bush, many of the proposed cuts were in Republican "red states." South Dakota would lose Ellsworth Air Force Base, the home of the B-1 bomber, and Georgia would lose Fort McPherson. Mississippi would see the loss of the naval station in Pascagoula, the hometown of Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss.
California appeared to benefit from the fact that its bases were already streamlined in past rounds of closures. State officials also made an aggressive case that California's bases were essential to confronting security threats in Asia, and had better weather for training and more restricted airspace for training flights than other parts of the country.
"The Pentagon has realized the strategic importance of California for the future," said retired Marine Maj. Gen. Mike Myatt, a member of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's commission to retain California bases. "If you are looking at strategic importance and the ability to train, those areas that don't have good training weather probably should have their bases closed."
Most of the Pentagon's cuts in California were aimed at reducing overhead. For example, four Defense Department accounting centers, in Oakland, San Bernardino, San Diego and Seaside, would be shut down, eliminating 471 mostly civilian jobs.
The biggest job losses from a base closure in California would stem from the proposed shutdown of the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Riverside County, which has 892 employees.
The Pentagon also plans to realign several bases, resulting in job gains for some facilities and losses for others. The Naval Air Weapons Station in China Lake would gain 2,469 military personnel, and the Naval Station San Diego would add 1,170.
But under the proposal, the Naval Medical Center in San Diego would lose 1,630 employees as their medical training operation is transferred to Fort Sam Houston in Texas. The Port Hueneme Naval Base in Ventura County would see its workforce trimmed by 1,534, and Beale Air Force Base in Yuba County would lose 179 personnel.
"California was not hit as hard as many feared, and for that we are relieved," said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. "But there are still installations on the closure and realignment list that need to be challenged."
The Base Closure and Realignment Commission, appointed by the president and Congress, now has four months to visit the affected bases before it makes its recommendations to Bush in September. The president and the Congress can approve or reject the recommendations as a whole, but can't remove individual bases from the list.
Schwarzenegger, far from celebrating Friday's news, issued a muted statement saying he would testify before the commission on behalf of the state's communities facing base closures or realignment. "I can assure you that we will leave no stone unturned in our efforts to protect California's vital bases," he said.
At Onizuka Air Force Station in Sunnyvale, employees may have to decide whether to accept early retirement or seek transfer to another military facility such as Vandenberg on the Central California coast.
"No one is really surprised by it," said Valerie Joseph, a spokeswoman at the base. "As we have been reminded many times, this is just a preliminary list. The BRAC commission could, in fact, remove us from the list. We won't know until September."
Some Californians appeared surprised that more of the state's bases didn't make the list. The Los Angeles Air Force Base, which houses the Space and Missile Systems Center and employs about 4,500 military and civilian workers, was rumored for months to be slated for closure.
"It was a big sigh of relief," said Joe Aro, executive director of the South Bay Economic Development Partnership. "But the game is not over. We need to make sure we don't wind up on the list between now and when it is set in granite."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Base-closure highlights
The Pentagon has proposed closing and realigning many of its bases to cut costs and prepare for post-Cold War threats.
lost Jobs
The proposed shift would cause a net loss of 29,005 military and civilian jobs, including positions lost from troop withdrawals overseas.
Next moves
A special commission reviews the list, which it can amend before sending to President Bush in September. The president and Congress must approve or reject the list as a whole.
What's at stake
The Pentagon says the cuts would save $5.5 billion a year. But communities facing base closures could lose hundreds of jobs and millions of dollars in economic activity.
Sources: Defense Department, Associated Press, Chronicle staff
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHART(1):
E-mail Zachary Coile at
zcoile@sfchronicle.com.
Top states with net gains or losses at U.S. military bases
GAINS
Maryland 9,293
Georgia 7,423
Texas 6,150
Colorado 4,917
Oklahoma 3,919
Kansas 3,582
Florida 2,757
Alabama 2,664
Indiana 2,197
Tennessee 1,088
Nevada 1,059
LOSSES
Connecticut -8,586
Maine -6,938
D.C. -6,496
Alaska -4,619
S. Dakota -3,797
New Jersey -3,760
Missouri -3,679
Kentucky -3,658
N. Mexico -2,849
Illinois -2,698
N. Dakota -2,645
California -2,018
Source: Department of Defense
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHART(2):
Changes to staffing at military bases
NORTHERN CALIFORNIA Status Change
1 Defense Finance and Accounting Service, Oakland C -50
2 Naval Weapons Station, Concord C -71
3 Onizuka Air Force Station, Sunnyvale C -278
4 AFRC Moffett Field, Mountain View G 253
5 Riverbank Army Ammunition Plant, Modesto C -89
6 Beale Air Force Base, Marysville R -179
7 Camp Parks (91st), Pleasanton R -43
8 Defense Distribution Depot San Joaquin, Tracy R -31.
CENTRAL CALIFORNIA
9 Defense Finance and Accounting Service, Seaside C -61
10 Fort Hunter Liggett, Monterey G 43
11 Fresno Air Terminal, Fresno G 311
12 Naval Air Station, Lemoore G 40
13 Edwards Air Force Base, Lancaster G 51
14 Vandenberg Air Force Base, Santa Barbara County G 145.
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
15 Naval Base Ventura City, Ventura R -1,534
16 Armed Forces Reserve Center, Bell C -24
17 Navy-Marine Corps Reserve Center, Los Angeles C -48
18 Defense Finance and Acc’nting Service, San Bernardino C -120
19 Naval Support Activity, Corona C -892
20 Navy-Marine Corps Reserve Center, Encino C -33
21 Leased Spaces, various C -16
22 Channel Islands Air Guard Station, Channel Islands G 19
23 Marine Corps Reserve Center, Pasadena G 25
24 Naval Air Weapons Station, China Lake G 2,469
25 March Air Reserve Base, Riverside R -111
26 Marine Corps Logistics Base, Barstow R -419
27 Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, San Clemente R -144
28 Los Alamitos (63rd), Los Alamitos R -170
29 Marine Corps Base, Miramar G 72
30 Naval Base, Point Loma G 309
31 Defense Finance and Acc’nting Service, San Diego C -240
32 Naval Station, San Diego G 1,170
33 Human Resources Support Center SW, San Diego R -164
34 Naval Base Coronado, San Diego R -460
35 Naval Medical Center San Diego, San Diego R -1,630
36 Naval Weapons Station, Fallbrook R -118
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Status legend
C = close
G = gain
R = reduction
Page A - 1
URL:
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cg...NGIRCPBFA1.DTL
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
©2005 San Francisco Chronicle
Linear Mode
