Base-closing delay sought by Maine senators

U.S. Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine are asking again for the Defense Department to delay the next round of base closings in light of President Bush’s proposal to reorganize troops abroad.

Domestic bases should not be closed while the Bush administration considers changes that could bring up to 70,000 troops – plus about 100,000 family members and civilian workers – back to the United States, the two Republican senators said.

The ramifications of those potential changes and the war on terrorism should be considered before domestic bases are closed, they said.

“We must recognize that the military will now have to accommodate these troops, the additional military responsibilities that the realignment suggests, and the troops’ families here in the U.S.,” Collins said.

The senators have made similar appeals before. Each time, the Pentagon has insisted that the process should move forward. The Pentagon wants to close a quarter of the domestic bases, and a decision could be made by November 2005.

Active bases from all four branches of the service plus the Air National Guard will be considered. Maine is home to Brunswick Naval Air Station and Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery.

Bush said the changes could save the Department of Defense billions of dollars by closing unnecessary bases overseas.

Those savings should mitigate the need to close bases at home, the Maine senators argued.

“While realigning our overseas military presence is essential to conducting our global war on terror, I firmly believe it makes no sense to consider closing nearly a quarter of our domestic military infrastructure in addition to the 21 percent already lost over the past 15 years here in America if these troops are to be housed at our domestic bases,” Snowe said.