Big posts may be spared closure, Army chief says

WASHINGTON — Big Army posts probably are safe from additional base closures, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Raymond Odierno said Friday.

At a Pentagon news conference, Gen. Odierno said that the Army made significant reductions in installations during the 2005 base realignment and closure round and that he envisions “minor” adjustments as the Army looks to match its facilities with a shrinking active-duty force through two additional rounds of closures and realignments.

“I don’t think you’re going to see big installations asked to close,” Gen. Odierno said a day after the Pentagon announced it would seek base closures as part of a broad restructuring of the military to meet congressional-mandated spending cuts. Gen. Odierno said he anticipates two BRAC rounds, pending congressional approval.

“For the most part, I think we have established our installations,” he said.

Gen. Odierno’s comments suggest that other branches of the military could bear the brunt of cutbacks in infrastructure and that any fears of Fort Drum being closed may be more exaggerated than in the past. But this BRAC proposal, unlike the previous round, coincides with a reduction in the force that will see the elimination of some brigades. The total active Army would decline from 562,000 now to 490,000 in 2017.

Two of the brigades targeted are in Europe and will be eliminated rather than brought home, Gen. Odierno said.

Defense officials say the current Army infrastructure is too big for the sized-down force they envision.

When the Pentagon last proposed base closures, the Army’s active-duty end strength was around 480,000, and the Defense Department opposed congressional efforts to increase it. But the base closure law — at least as currently written — requires enough base structure to accommodate a surge in the military in case of war, for instance.

Officials have not said which domestic brigades might be targeted, and Gen. Odierno said the number could increase as the Army reexamines its own structure. Fort Drum is home to three brigades of the 10th Mountain Division, and a fourth assigned to the division is based at Fort Polk, La.

In the last round, the Army Basing Study identified Fort Drum as not having sufficient runway space, despite major expansion at Wheeler-Sack Army Airfield. Officials at Fort Drum disputed the finding.

The post has a well-documented challenge with housing, which might have helped prevent the stationing of a fourth brigade there. And energy costs — which the Army aims to reduce, Gen. Odierno said — are high at Drum because of its location. But the BRAC law also requires a diversity of climate among installations, a provision that former Northern New York Rep. John M. McHugh, now secretary of the Army, wrote when he served on the House Armed Services Committee.

A future BRAC round depends on Congress, where even staunch supporters of past base closures are not showing much enthusiasm. The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Howard P. “Buck” McKeon, R-Calif., opposes the troop reductions that form the premise for base closures, a spokesman said.

The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. Carl M. Levin, D-Mich., said Thursday that he would oppose domestic closures until the Pentagon cuts overseas installations, which does not require the BRAC process, reported Congressional Quarterly.

A defense analyst at the American Enterprise Institute, Mackenzie Eaglen, said Friday that the proposal seems dead on arrival on Capitol Hill and does not make much sense in an election year.

The Pentagon does not seem terribly serious about the idea, Ms. Eaglen said, considering that officials don’t appear to be asking for any startup funds in the next budget and have not projected the anticipated savings.

On the other hand, she said, a reduction of 80,000 soldiers would suggest the Army should be prepared for a BRAC round in the next three years.