The News & Obersver August 17, 2004
Closing bases gets more complicated
By Jay Price
It's unclear where U.S. military units will be stationed when they are moved to the United States during the next decade, said John Pike, director of the think tank GlobalSecurity.org.
There's a chance, he said, that some might be sent to North Carolina bases, perhaps Fort Bragg, which is among the nation's largest. More obvious choices, though, at least for Army units, are those that don't have full divisions. Those include Fort Carson in Colorado, Fort Drum in New York and Fort Lewis in Washington state.
One thing is certain, Pike said: The realignment will add a layer of chaos to the coming round of base closings. The Defense Department is expected to release a list next year of the military facilities it wants to shut down. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has said the closings could slash as much as a quarter of the nation's base capacity.
Military bases are major economic engines, and politicians and community leaders around the nation have been scrambling to make their local bases feel wanted. They've spent millions on things such as buffers to protect the bases from development and provided them with free utilities.
North Carolina leaders have been hoping not only to dodge closings, but to add troops from bases closed elsewhere.
The state's six major bases provide jobs for more than 100,000 uniformed personnel and 20,000 civilians. They have an economic impact estimated at $18 billion a year, according to a study released this year by a North Carolina advisory panel on military affairs.
State government already has committed more than $2 million to enhancing the climate for the military, and communities around bases such as Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point in Havelock are pulling together hundreds of thousands more, hiring consultants and drafting regulations to shield bases from encroaching development.
Given that similar efforts are under way across the nation, the prospect of tens of thousands of additional troops moving back to the United States could not only disrupt the Pentagon's intricate base closing calculations, Pike said, but also start politicians plotting.
"That's obviously what the feeding frenzy is going to be about," he said.
© Copyright 2004, The News & Observer Publishing Company a subsidiary of The McClatchy Company
