New Mexico base avoids closure, loses aircraft
Unless the Pentagon finds a new mission for Cannon Air Force Base by 2010, it will close.
The Base Realignment and Closure Commission Friday voted to modify the Defense Department's plan to mothball New Mexico's Cannon Air Force Base, opting to leave the base open but move its three F-16 fighter squadrons to six other bases.
The commission backed a proposal urging Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to take another look at Cannon, located in Clovis near the Texas border, and consider assigning it a new mission. If such a mission is not found by Dec. 31, 2009, the Pentagon can close the base.
The proposal, offered by panelist and former Transportation Secretary Samuel K. Skinner, passed 6-1 with two abstentions. Commission member and retired Adm. Harold W. Gehman voted against the plan.
Commissioners said that the Cannon decision was one of their most difficult, because of the dramatic effect the base's closure would have on the community and the Pentagon's instance that the F-16s were needed elsewhere for strategic reasons.
New Mexico's political leaders grudgingly accepted the commission's decision, vowing to find a new mission for the base.
"It's clear that the BRAC commission wasn't persuaded by the Pentagon's arguments that Cannon should be closed," said Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M. "This decision gives us time to regroup as a delegation and work even harder at convincing the Pentagon that Cannon Air Force Base is much too valuable to lose."
The Pentagon proposal to shut Cannon would have relocated 2,824 military and 384 civilian personnel at a cost of $90.1 million. The military had hoped to save $2.7 billion over a 20-year period.
The New Mexico congressional delegation predicted in a news release that the F-16s would not be redeployed until 2008 because of the $90 million cost of moving them. They noted that commission member and retired Gen. Lloyd W. Newton said that Cannon would be an "ideal" location for the future F-35 Joint Strike Fighter fleet.