Next base-closing round will aim to create joint facilities

The Pentagon will use the 2005 round of military base closures to create a new generation of multimission, multiservice bases, according to Raymond DuBois, deputy undersecretary of Defense for installations and environment.

In an interview Tuesday, DuBois told Government Executive that the next round of the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process will be part of the Defense transformation effort, not simply a cost-cutting exercise. "If we were to approach BRAC from simply a basing or an infrastructure-footprint-real property assessment point of view, it would be simplistic and ineffective. We must approach BRAC from a warfighting, mission-oriented point of view," he said.

DuBois said the new round of closures will attempt to create bases that can be used by more than one service for a variety of missions. He cited the Army's depot in Corpus Christi, Texas, where both Navy aircraft and Army helicopters are repaired, as an example of the kind of arrangement that the Pentagon will seek to replicate in the 2005 BRAC process.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld issued broad guidelines last week for the next round of base closures. Under the guidelines, the Office of the Secretary of Defense will play a far greater role in deciding what bases will be closed and realigned than it did in past rounds. Rumsfeld "wants to be intimately involved in this from the beginning," DuBois said, adding that past Defense secretaries have had only a "titular role" as BRAC chiefs and often farmed the decision-making out to the military services.

Ken Beeks, vice president of Business Executives for National Security in Washington, said the new approach to managing BRAC is long overdue. "The long and short of it is this top-down, more centralized approach is a good thing and is essential in getting at [bases and installations] that were left off the table in the last BRAC," said Beeks, adding that the services had "slow-rolled" past BRAC efforts to consolidate redundant facilities, such as laboratories and test ranges, into joint installations. The military services have expressed concern about Rumsfeld's expanded role since the Defense Department's new management structure was proposed last spring.

The plan calls for two new organizations, operating out of the Pentagon, to manage the 2005 round of base closures. An Infrastructure Executive Council, headed by the deputy Defense secretary and including the service secretaries and chiefs of staff, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the undersecretary of Defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, will provide policy and oversight. A lower-level Infrastructure Steering Council will be headed by the undersecretary of Defense for acquisition, technology and logistics and will include the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the services' assistant secretaries for installations and environment, the service vice chiefs of staff and the deputy undersecretary of Defense for installations and environment. It will oversee joint analysis of common military functions and ensure those efforts are coordinated with service reviews of specific operations.

DuBois said he has repeatedly told the services that they will have a say throughout the review process. All decisions about what facilities to close or realign will be based primarily on military value, which requires input from uniformed personnel, he said. Peter Potochney, a Senior Executive Service member who managed previous Defense base closures and more recently oversaw housing privatization efforts, has been tapped to coordinate BRAC activities within the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

DuBois said that while the Pentagon will examine common operations across the services for potential consolidation or elimination in the BRAC 2005 process, the military services will review unique operations. For example, DuBois said, the Air Force would still have the most say in recommendations about where strategic tankers would be based-with some input from the Joint Transportation Command-since flying such tankers is a job unique to the Air Force.

However, DuBois said, the Pentagon will create joint teams to do a separate analysis of common Defense business functions. Over the next six months, the Office of the Secretary of Defense will propose a list of functions for the joint reviews. In previous BRACs, the Pentagon told the services to consider the consolidation of operations in several areas, including research laboratories and testing ranges, but such efforts generated few specific recommendations.

DuBois declined to speculate upon what functions might be jointly reviewed for 2005. He noted that homeland security concerns are a new factor that must be weighed in the upcoming BRAC deliberations.

Army and Navy spokesmen said the services are moving forward with BRAC plans based on Rumsfeld's new rules.

"The military departments will have full participation in the process and will participate in determining the final DoD recommendations to the BRAC Commission," an Army spokesman said. "The Army is currently determining how it can best organize its efforts to support the secretary's initiative to maximize warfighting and efficiency through the BRAC 2005 process."

A Navy spokesman said Navy Secretary Gordon England is drafting guidance that will outline how the Navy and Marine Corps should conduct reviews of their infrastructure. The Navy will follow the Pentagon's model by establishing its own Infrastructure Executive Council, headed by the Navy secretary, to provide policy and oversight, and an Infrastructure Steering Group, headed by the assistant secretary of the Navy for installations and environment, to handle reviews of service-unique requirements. Anne Davis, an SES member and assistant secretary of the Navy for installations, will manage the service's BRAC activities on a daily basis.