US Military Bases Face Next Round of Closings -- VOA

US Military Bases Face Next Round of Closings
By VOA News
20 March 2005

A published report says all 425 domestic U.S. military bases are under review as the Defense Department considers a new round of base closures. The New York Times reported Sunday that after more than two years of study, Pentagon analysts are putting the final touches on a list of recommendations to submit to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

In previous rounds, the Pentagon eliminated 97 bases and closed hundreds of smaller facilities, saving tens of billions of dollars. Military officials say the old Cold War network of defense facilities still has too much capacity for modern needs.

Mr. Rumsfeld is to give his list of proposed base closings to an independent commission for review in May. The newspaper reported that by early November, President Bush and Congress must accept or reject a final list submitted by the commission.

http://www.voanews.com/english/2005-03-20-voa10.cfm


Meanwhile, we're building new bases like crazy in Iraq. Here's construction on one of the 14 major, new military bases there--this one in Balad, Iraq. What happened to homeland security? I'd feel less vulnerable to terrorists if our troops were home, instead of colonizing the middle east.

He talks about the large number of bases open and running in so very many countries.

I'd like to see a list of the open bases (that aren't secret) now.

:eyes:

Close 'em up. We have other uses for the money.

-With the exception of Ronald Reagan, every Cold War Republican president actually cut military spending. Every Cold War Democratic President increased it.

-Republican Presidents Eisenhower, Nixon, and Ford cut defense while Democrats Kennedy, Johnson and Carter increased defense spending.

http://www.cdi.org/issues/milspend.html

GHW Bush:

"Two years ago, I began planning cuts in military spending that reflected the changes of the new era. But now, this year, with imperial communism gone, that process can be accelerated. After completing 20 planes for which we have begun procurement, we will shut down further production of the B-2 bomber. We will cancel the small ICBM program. We will cease production of new warheads for our sea-based ballistic missiles. We will stop all new production of the Peacekeeper missile. And we will not purchase any more advanced cruise missiles. … The reductions I have approved will save us an additional $50 billion over the next five years. By 1997 we will have cut defense by 30 percent since I took office."

-State of the Union address on Jan. 28, 1992
http://www.c-span.org/executive/transcript.asp?cat=current_event&code=bush_admin&year=1992

Rumsfeld:

"Overall, since I've been Secretary, we will have taken the five-year defense program down by well over $300 billion. That's the peace dividend. … And now we're adding to that another $50 billion … of so-called peace dividend."

Cheney

"The Army, as I indicated in my earlier testimony, recommended to me that we keep a robust Apache helicopter program going forward. AH-64 . . . forced the Army to make choices. I said, "You can't have all three. We don't have the money for all three." So I recommended that we cancel the AH-64 program two years out. That would save $1.6 billion in procurement and $200 million in spares over the next five years.

-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Jan. 31, 1992

Cheney proceeded to lay into the then-Democratically controlled Congress for refusing to cut more weapons systems.

"Congress has let me cancel a few programs. But you've squabbled and sometimes bickered and horse-traded and ended up forcing me to spend money on weapons that don't fill a vital need in these times of tight budgets and new requirements. … You've directed me to buy more M-1s, F-14s, and F-16s—all great systems … but we have enough of them."

-Secretary of Defense Cheney, testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, February 1 1992,

Gen. Colin Powell, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at the same hearings, testifying about plans to cut Army divisions by one-third, Navy aircraft carriers by one-fifth, and active armed forces by half a million men and women, to say nothing of "major reductions" in fighter wings and strategic bombers.

gw bush, the Stupid One

2005 budget; Pentagon plans to cut costly weapons programs such as an Air Force advanced fighter plane, a stealthy Navy destroyer and the next generation of nuclear submarines. Bush's missile defense program would likewise lose billions of dollars in funding in coming years.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3319-2005Feb6.html

Pentagon Scales Back Arms Plans

Rising war costs and a stubborn budget deficit have forced the Pentagon to propose billions of dollars in cuts to advanced weapons systems...

With the cutbacks and additions, the Pentagon would trim $30 billion over the next six years from its original $89 billion defense buildup.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48425-2005Jan4.html

Plans to reduce Pentagon spending for weapons in order to pay for the war in Iraq would cut sharply into missile-defense programs managed in Huntsville and kill two Army missile programs outright.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's office wants to slash missile-defense spending by $1 billion in the fiscal 2006 budget that the White House plans to send Congress in the next few weeks. The plan would continue to reduce missile-defense spending by $800 million a year until 2011.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2005/050123-missile-projects.htm

Rumsfeld

"...for the first time in 35 years, U.S. military leaders are talking about increasing troop strength. To some politicians and commentators, the bombing of the lightly guarded U.N. headquarters in Baghdad last week was an argument for increasing not only the U.S. presence in Iraq but the overall size of the military too. Officially, the Pentagon insisted that neither was necessary.

As for the idea of expanding the Army generally, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is opposed.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2003/030901-army-stretched01.htm

Lawmakers have already authorised the Pentagon to use emergency war budgets temporarily to increase the size of the army by 30,000 to 512,000 soldiers. But Donald Rumsfeld, defence secretary, has opposed legislative changes that would force the army permanently to increase its so-called "end strength" or numbers.

http://aimpoints.hq.af.mil/display.cfm?id=1456

Dick Cheney

Cheney also moved to cut the armed forces by a half-million troops, and to shut down more than 40 military bases that, as a result, would no longer be needed.

http://www.issues2000.org/Celeb/Dick_Cheney_Defense.htm

bush Cartel

More Military Bases in US to Be Closed

The Pentagon plans to shut down or scale back some of the 425 facilities, the first such effort to save money in 10 years. The downsizing is part of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's long-term transformation of the Cold War-era military.

http://www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=516956

Soldiers and their families can just live on the street. Maybe bush will spring for a cardboard box per family. Nahhhh. bush is a cheap bastard who hates spending a dime on our troops.

No Bankruptcy Protection for Troops

U.S. Senate Republicans blocked an effort by Democrats to shield military personnel from changes to bankruptcy law that would force more debtors to repay their creditors.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=aamWalvvBr.8&refer=us

Veterans' Benefits "hurtful" to National Security, says Pentagon

The Wall Street Journal describes the pittance set aside for veteran’s benefits as "Congress’ generosity," even as the Republican-controlled Congress and Bush Pentagon get set to slash billions more from Veterans Administration’s (VA) programs. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal (1-25-05), Pentagon official David Chu, in a mockery of the contribution of veterans, defended a new round of cuts by ironically describing funding for programs like veterans’ education and job training, health care, pensions, VA housing and the like as "hurtful" to national security.

http://classwarnotes.blogspot.com/2005/01/veterans-benefits-hurtful-to-national_26.html

Back from Iraq - and suddenly out on the streets

An increasing number of veterans returning from Iraq or Afghanistan ending up homeless. Psychological trauma, high housing costs, gaps in pay between civilians and the military which mean ex-servicemen cannot save for deposits and the lag in getting VA assistance all contribute to this growing problem.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0208/p02s01-ussc.html

Bush Budget Raises Drug Prices for Many Veterans

President Bush's budget would more than double the co-payment charged to many veterans for prescription drugs and would require some to pay a new fee of $250 a year for the privilege of using government health care, administration officials said...

The government had no immediate estimate of how many veterans would be affected if the user fee and co-payment proposals were adopted. But veterans' groups said that hundreds of thousands of people would end up paying more and that many would be affected by both changes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/07/politics/07budget.html?oref=login

Soldiers dying for lack of $20 tourniquets

Since at least a month before the war in Iraq began, medical experts in the Army and other services have called on the Pentagon to equip every American soldier in the war zone with a modern tourniquet. The simple first-aid tool - a more sophisticated version of the cloth-and-stick device used by armies for centuries - could all but eliminate deaths caused by blood loss from extremity wounds, the most common cause of preventable death in combat, they argue. The cost would not likely exceed $2 million, or about two-thousandths of a percent of the $82 billion proposed for the war this year.

Yet many of the nation's soldiers - tens of thousands, some doctors and Army medical officials estimate - continue to enter battle without tourniquets. And some bleed to death from battlefield injuries that would not be life-threatening if a proper tourniquet were available, according to more than a dozen military doctors and medics...

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/iraq/bal-te.tourniquet06mar06,1,4505132.story?coll=bal-home-utility&ctrack=3&cset=true

Damn you, President Clinton!!!

:eyes:

Rightwingnuts; stupidest MFers on the planet.

the Democrats have been blamed for base closures. Since a large part of the economy in Southern states depends on military bases, it could only help build the Democratic base in the South.