Defense Secretary nominee won’t rule out more base closures

Donald Rumsfeld, President-elect Bush's nominee to be Defense Secretary said at his Senate confirmation hearing Thursday that he has not ruled out closing more military bases. Rumsfeld, who served as Defense Secretary in the Ford administration, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that his initial impression is that the Defense Department has more bases than it needs. However, Rumsfeld declined to call for additional closures, saying he needed to study the issue further before making any recommendations. Clinton administration officials have called for further base closures to free up billions of dollars for modernization and readiness. But they have been rebuffed by lawmakers who accused Clinton of politicizing the process in the mid-1990s to avoid closing bases in voter-rich Texas and California. Most political observers believe Congress would support a request for base closures from the Bush administration. Sen. John Warner, R-Va., who will once again be chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee when Vice President-elect Dick Cheney is sworn in, urged Rumsfeld to consider base closures as soon as possible. "There's infrastructure that can be withdrawn, and in many cases it will help local communities," said Warner, noting it would also save Defense billions of dollars. Rumsfeld said it is "clear" there should be an increase in Defense spending, but he said he did not yet know how much should be added. Various recommendations have ranged from adding $20 billion to $100 billion to Defense's roughly $300 billion annual budget. In written testimony, Rumsfeld said he would seek to strike an "appropriate balance" between using existing civilian Defense workers and hiring private contractors to maintain military equipment. He said the balance must ensure that critical capabilities remain in the hands of Defense workers. Rumsfeld also said Defense needs to overhaul its system for procuring new weapons. "The present weapon system acquisition process was designed for a different environment than the one that exists today. In my view, it is not well suited to meet the demands posed by an expansion of unconventional and asymmetrical threats in an era of rapid technological advances," Rumsfeld told lawmakers. Rumsfeld is expected to win Senate confirmation.