Pentagon says moving Pearl operations
would be 'detrimental'
By Dennis
Camire
Advertiser Washington Bureau
Washington, D.C.
• A Pentagon officials said at a hearing this morning that moving nuclear
repair operations away from Pearl Harbor Shipyard would have
"detrimental" effect on Navy operations.
Michael W.
Wynne, Undersecretary of Defense, appeared before the Base Realignment and
Closure Commission to explain why the Pentagon had recommended closure of
Portsmouth Naval Shipyard instead of Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard.
"Military
judgment favored retention of Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard because of the
strategic location and multi-platform capability (ability to work on a variety
of ships)," Wynne said.
"On a
practical level, moving the capability of nuclear repairs almost 3,000 miles
from an operational fleet base violates the Navy's tenet of 'follow the fleet'
and may have some detrimental effect on operations," he said.
Military
judgment outweighed military value and savings, defense officials testified.
BRAC is an
independent panel charged with reducing the number of military installations
across the country. Its panel of nine commissioners will vote tomorrow on
whether to add Pearl Harbor to the list of possible military installations that
should be closed or realigned.
Wynne told the
panel the Pentagon studied all four of the Navy's shipyards, Pearl Harbor,
Porstmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery Maine, Norfolk Navy Shipyard in Virginia,
and Puget Sound in Washington. The Navy determined there was enough excess
capacity to close either Pearl or Portsmouth.
More than 200
people crowded into today's hearing, including a number of officials from
Hawaii.
Admiral Robert
F. Willard, Vice Chief of Naval Operations also defended keeping Pearl Harbor
open, saying that moving the depot maintenance that Pearl Harbor performs back
to the Mainland would require increasing the Navy's overall force.
U.S. Rep. Ed
Case, who attended the hearing, said one thing that struck him is that it did
not appear that Pearl Harbor was at the front of most of the commissioners'
minds. They seemed to be focused on Portsmouth, perhaps with the idea of making
the case for keeping Portsmouth open, he said.
"If Pearl
Harbor is not added tomorrow it would be very difficult to take Portsmouth off
later," Case said.
The hearing
remains under way. Later today, officials with the Government Accounting Office
and the Overseas Basing Commission will testify.