With base closings on track, Valley should be on guard

A House-Senate conference committee will decide the fate of the Bush administration's push for authority to close military bases next year, but given the president's warning that he will veto any bill that delays the closing plan, local officials are right in not breaking stride in their campaign to keep the Youngstown Air Reserve Station off the list.
The Senate's decision not to go along with the House in voting for a two-year extension is short-sighted. The administration's global war on terrorism and Bush's desire to replace dictatorial regimes around the world with democratically elected governments mean even more stress on a military that is already being stretched by the occupation of Iraq.
While the administration continues to insist that the number of American troops in Iraq will not increase dramatically, and could be decreased after an interim government is installed June 30, the unrelenting war being waged by insurgents suggests an uncertain future.
Add to that the search by the armed forces for Osama bin Laden, whose Al-Qaida terrorist organization was responsible for the 9/11 attack on America's mainland, and the clampdown on terrorist cells in 60 countries, and it becomes clear that closing military installations is not good public policy.
However, the president will get his way in the end because the Republican controlled House and Senate will not be inclined to challenge him in a year in which he is seeking re-election. Thus, the Defense Department's Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) plan can be expected to be implemented in 2005.
Excess capacity
That means giving authority to the Pentagon to draw up a list of excess capacity facilities, which an independent commission will use to decide what bases to close. Congress can accept or reject the commission's recommendations, but it cannot change the decision.
Although we are confident that the Youngstown Air Reserve Station in Vienna Township, home to the 910th Airlift Wing of the Air Force, and Marine and Navy Reserve units, will pass muster if the evaluation is based on objective criteria, we are acutely aware of the political dimension of such an exercise.
We are not reassured when Ohio's two senators, Mike DeWine and George V. Voinovich, pledge to do all they can to keep the state's military installations off the closings list. DeWine and Voinovich, both Republicans, voted against delaying the closings, but both expressed confidence that each Ohio base can withstand the test of need.
"The senator supports the BRAC process, but he also supports the hometown team and doesn't want to see any of the Ohio bases closed," Amanda Flaig, DeWine's spokeswoman, said.
Likewise, Voinovich said each military installation in the state "can justify its existence on the merits."
But what if the Pentagon signals that Ohio will have to give up one or two of its bases? Will the senators go to bat for the Youngstown Air Reserve Station located in the predominantly Democratic Mahoning Valley and risk alienating their Republican support in other parts of the state?
Those questions are prompted by this region's experience in another competition in which Cleveland and Columbus could have ended up losing high-paying Defense Department jobs.
In 1992, then President George H.W. Bush launched a national contest for consolidation of Defense Department accounting offices into regional facilities, with the prospect of 5,000 to 8,000 jobs. The Mahoning Valley submitted a proposal that was one of the best in the country.
Bush, who was seeking re-election, promised that given a second term, a regional facility would be located in the Valley. Some of the jobs would have come from Cleveland and Columbus.
Clinton's promise
Democratic challenger Bill Clinton, campaigning in Boardman, told 10,000 supporters that if the Valley's proposal was confirmed as one of the best, he would sign off on the Pentagon accounting center.
After he took office, however, Clinton was pressured by prominent Democratic senators to shelve the consolidation program.
The Valley was betrayed by then Ohio Sen. John Glenn, a Democrat, who wrote a letter to Clinton urging him to keep the centers in Cleveland and Columbus intact.
Thus our apprehension: If a Democratic senator who had enjoyed strong support from the Mahoning Valley could turn his back on us, why not two Republicans who can win re-election without carrying Mahoning and Trumbull counties?
The only way to force DeWine and Voinovich to embrace the Youngstown facility is to develop a bullet-proof justification for its continued existence. We are confident that local political and community leaders involved in the campaign to save the base will make a persuasive case.
Indeed, the facility is getting a major shot in the economic arm through the efforts of U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan of Niles, D-17th, who persuaded his colleagues to provide $954,000 for housing facilities for reservists.
Ryan, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, correctly believes that the greater the federal government's investment in the base, the more difficult it will be for the Pentagon to decommission it.
The money is included in the 2005 Defense Authorization Bill which the House passed last week.
The Senate is scheduled to take up its version of the bill after the Memorial Day holiday. The people of the Mahoning Valley would welcome an assurance from DeWine and Voinoich that the money will be included in the final version.