WASHINGTON – Former Defense Secretary William S. Cohen has joined every living ex-defense secretary in pushing for more military base closures as a means to free more resources for the fight against international terrorism.

In an unusual letter to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Cohen – a Republican senator from Maine until he was tapped for the Clinton Cabinet – and his colleagues said that running military bases that are unnecessary drains vital resources away from the fight against terrorism.

“We are concerned that the reluctance to close unneeded facilities is a drag on our military forces, particularly in an era when homeland security is being discussed as never before,” the ex-secretaries said in the letter, which was released Oct. 19. “The forces needed to defend bases that would perhaps otherwise be closed are forces unavailable for the campaign on terrorism.”

In addition to Cohen, the letter is signed by William J. Perry (defense secretary in the Clinton administration), Casper W. Weinberger (Reagan), James Schlesinger (Ford), Robert S. McNamara (Kennedy), Frank C. Carlucci (Reagan), Harold Brown (Carter) and Melvin Laird (Nixon).

The group letter said, “Money spent on a redundant facility is money not spent on the latest technology we’ll need to win this campaign.”

The House and Senate are currently negotiating the final details of a defense authorization bill in a conference committee that will lay a foundation for spending in fiscal year 2002 and for many of the immediate elements necessary to wage the terrorism fight.

The legislation would authorize a new round of base closures.

Maine’s two remaining military bases, the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard and Brunswick Naval Air Station, have been examined as potential targets during each of the past four rounds of base closures that began in 1988.

Both U.S. Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine are opposed to re-establishing the Base Closure and Realignment Commission for another round of base closures.

“If the Pentagon believes certain bases are no longer needed, those installations should be identified and included in the Department of Defense’s budget submission,” Collins said recently. “There is no need to cast a cloud over virtually every base in communities all over this great nation. Now is certainly not the time to create concern and confusion in every community that has proudly hosted a military installation.”

However, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., who – as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee – received the letter from the former defense chiefs, said, “Allowing DOD to conduct a new round of base realignment and closures is necessary to stop wasting taxpayer money, to redirect funds to higher national security priorities, and to allow the transformation of our military.”

Levin, in response to the letter, said, “Congress should listen to the voice of experience. … When they tell us we need to act, we should listen, and we should act.”