Reports Are True: Whidbey On Hit List -- Sand Point Also Targeted

WASHINGTON - Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney this morning recommended that Whidbey Island Naval Air Station be closed as part of the department's efforts to cut back on military spending.

Puget Sound Naval Station at Sand Point in Seattle also was recommended for closure. Cheney made the announcement at a news conference this morning.

Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Bremerton, who received news of the closures this morning shortly before 7 a.m., also was told that soldiers from Fort Ord, Calif., would be transferred to Fort Lewis outside Tacoma, and that Fairchild Air Force Base outside Spokane would receive 1,500 new personnel and increased funding as a result of this latest reorganization.

McChord Air Force Base near Tacoma also would receive almost 700 additional personnel.

"I'm disappointed in the decision regarding Whidbey Island," Dicks said this morning. "I feel very sorry for the people there who have supported the Navy."

Except for Whidbey Island, Dicks said the rest of the state fared pretty well. He said the state congressional delegation would immediately begin seeking reasons for the Navy's decision.

"We're willing to take our share of the reduction as long as it's based on objective facts and not political considerations," Dicks said.

Whidbey Island Naval Air Station houses more than 100 A-6E bombers and EA-6B electronic-jamming planes and employs more than 8,000 personnel. The planes and personnel would be moved to Lemoore Naval Air Station in Lemoore, Calif.

A spokesman for Naval Station Puget Sound, Chief Gene Romano, said the base at Sand Point has 2,000 military and civilian employees. It includes the regional Navy command for Washington, Oregon and Alaska.

In all, Cheney recommended closing 31 major domestic military bases and 12 minor installations as well as the realigning of 28 others.

The estimated cost of closing the facilities is $5.7 billion from fiscal 1992 to fiscal 1997 while the savings will amount to about $6.5 billion, for a net gain of $850 million, the Pentagon said. With additional savings from land sales, the Pentagon estimates that by 1997, it will save $1.7 billion annually.

"As a result of changed world circumstances, we are now pursuing a new strategy with respect to U.S. forces," Cheney told reporters at the Pentagon news conference.

Cheney said the collapse of the Warsaw Pact, the demise of the Soviet empire and fiscal constraints at home were the reasons for the scaled-down military and requirement for fewer bases.

The Pentagon said its decision to include Whidbey on the base-closure list was based on the limitation of Whidbey to grow. Transferring operations to Lemoore, which is better able to accommodate future growth, will allow the Navy to consolidate its A-6 and EA-6B aircraft at one base.

At a news conference this morning, Dicks and Rep. Al Swift, D-Bellingham, said they wanted to review the Navy's rationale for the Whidbey closure but said mere economic impact would not be sufficient to reverse the decision.

The only way to change the Navy's mind, they said, would be to convince the Navy that it had made errors in evaluating the potential savings associated with the closure.

"The main question is, will it save the Navy money?" said Swift.

Swift said he was concerned that the Navy's decision might have been based on internal Navy politics.

"It could be turf battles, with the top brass favoring one piece of turf over another," Swift said.

"For years they told us that the last thing they would do was close NAS Whidbey because of the quality of the air space for all-weather training," he continued. "What changed?"

Swift said that a rumor in Oak Harbor that the closure of Whidbey was a trade-off for a Navy decision to continue construction of its home port in Everett is false.

Today's announcement by Cheney is the third time since 1988 that the government has attempted to close bases in an effort to reduce the size of the military.

In 1988, the Reagan administration first proposed closing 86 military installations. That proposal was accepted by Congress.

Last year, Bush's Defense Department recommended closing 35 bases. However, the proposal died because of congressional opposition, and Cheney went back to the drawing board.

This time, the government has tried again to remove politics from the process.

Cheney's recommendations will go to a bipartisan commission chaired by former New Jersey Congressman James Courter. The Government Accounting Office will review the list and make a recommendation to the commission by May 15. The commission then has to report to the president by July 1.

Bush will have until July 15 to accept or reject the recommendation. If he accepts it, it goes to Congress. If he rejects it, the commission has until Aug. 15 to try again.

In either case, Congress won't be allowed to pick and choose from the final recommendation of which bases to cut. Congress must approve or deny the entire list.

That requirement, in part, caused a delay this week in the base-closing announcement. Cheney was forced to put off the recommendations for a day while he waited for the Senate to confirm all eight members of the commission. An early announcement, he feared, would have allowed senators trying to protect bases in their states to hold nominees for the commission hostage to political promises to keep their bases open.

The only comfort for residents of towns like Oak Harbor was that the closure process won't take place overnight.

For example, of the 86 bases ordered closed in 1988, only one actually has had the doors padlocked - Pease Air Force Base in New Hampshire - and that happened only last week.

All bases on the 1988 list won't be closed until 1995.

Until this year, Washington state has fared well.

While cutting other installations, the Pentagon increased operations at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, added functions to Fairchild Air Force Base outside Spokane and continued spending at McChord Air Force Base and Fort Lewis near Tacoma. During a military-construction freeze last year, the Everett home port was one of the few projects allowed to proceed.

However, those facts will be of little comfort to Oak Harbor, which is almost totally dependent on the economy of the Whidbey base.

Half the town's population works on the base, which contributes $300 million a year to the area's economy. Real estate deals went sour this week at the mere hint of a base closure.

Swift, whose district includes the island, has already developed a strategy to try to get the commission to maintain the Whidbey base.

While there is much anxiety about the possible closure of Whidbey, Seattle's local officials are excited about the prospect of the closing of the Sand Point naval installation. The shoreline of the old base has already been turned into Warren G. Magnuson Park, and city officials had been seeking an adjacent 37 acres to expand the park.

Now, the entire 237-acre base is expected to be made surplus. This week, Rep. John Miller, R-Seattle, and Sen. Brock Adams, D-Wash., introduced bills that would transfer the base to the Interior Department while the city comes up with a plan for the rest of the land.

Cheney's list

Among the other major facilities outside Washington state on the list to be closed:

ARMY:

Fort McClellan in Anniston, Ala.

Fort Ord in Seaside, Calif.

Fort Benjamin Harrison in Indianapolis

Fort Devens in Ayer, Mass.

Fort Chaffee in Fort Smith, Ark.

Army Depot in Sacramento, Calif.

Fort Dix in Wrightstown, N.J.

AIR FORCE:

Eaker Air Force Base in Blytheville, Ark.

Castle Air Force Base in Merced, Calif.

Lowry Air Force Base in Denver

Grissom Air Force Base in Peru, Ind.

England Air Force Base in Alexandria, La.

Williams Air Force Base in Chandler, Ariz.

Moody Air Force Base in Valdosta, Ga.

Loring Air Force Base in Limestone, Maine

Richards-Gebaur Air Force Base in Kansas City

Rickenbacker Air National Guard Base in Columbus, Ohio

Myrtle Air Force Base in Myrtle Beach, S.C.

Carswell Air Force Base in Fort Worth, Texas

Bergstrom Air Force Base in Austin, Texas

Wurtsmith Air Force Base in Oscoda, Mich.

NAVY:

Philadelphia Naval Shipyard and Station

Naval Station Long Beach in California

Hunters Point Annex in San Francisco

Naval Air Station Moffett Field in Sunnyvale, Calif.

Naval Training Center in Orlando, Fla.

Naval Air Station Chase Field in Beeville, Texas.

MARINE CORPS:

Air Station, Tustin, Calif.

Scripps-Howard News Service