Testifying before Congress yesterday, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld told Congress that it was time to eliminate military bases around the country that are no longer needed. Unfortunately eliminating such bases is always a political hot potato.
Representative Rob Simmons (R-Connecticut) summed up the attitude that most members of Congress have toward military bases,
You refer to closing unneeded bases. I only have one base, and I do need it. I just want to make that clear.
Note that Simmons didn’t say that the military needs the base nor that the country or even his state needs the base. Rather, Simmons needs the base. If Congress eliminates it, voters in Simmons’ district might be more likely to vote him out of office.
In fact many communities will go to extreme lengths to keep their military bases. I’ve seen this first hand when the military proposed eliminating a small and unneeded base in the town where I grew up, Battle Creek, Michigan. Local campaigners managed to remove the base from the list of those to be eliminated temporarily, but there is really no earth shattering strategic reason to maintain a base in a small Midwestern backwater.
According to the New York Times the Pentagon itself estimates that as many as 25 percent of its bases are unneeded and could be closed without affect its military readiness. Lets get on with doing that already.
Source:
As Defense Secretary Calls for Base Closings, Congress Circles the Wagons. James Dao, The New York Times, June 29, 2001