Saturday, August 27, 2005
Northwest's F-15s should stay put, base panel says
Disagreeing with the Pentagon, a federal commission Friday blocked a plan that would have transferred from the Pacific Northwest the Oregon National Guard fighter jets that patrolled Seattle's skies after 9/11.
In voting to retain all 15 F-15 fighters flown by the 142nd Fighter Wing in Portland, the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure Commission agreed with Washington and Oregon public officials who firmly resisted the transfer.
"They did the right thing for the sovereign air defense of the western United States," said Maj. Gen. Timothy Lowenberg, Washington National Guard commander, taking time from a meeting with Navy officials in Seattle Friday.
"I and many others are tremendously relieved," said Lowenberg, who had joined Gov. Christine Gregoire and Sen. Maria Cantwell in leading Washington's opposition.
Washington's Air Guard is home to the nation's Western Air Defense Sector, known as WADS, based at McChord Air Force Base near Tacoma, but responsible for monitoring all skies west of the Mississippi River.
"Those jets are important to WADS," Lowenberg said. "Those are the aircraft we rely upon to scramble for air threats not only to Seattle and the state of Washington but throughout the Pacific Northwest."
The Pentagon had proposed transferring the jets to Air Force bases in New Jersey and Louisiana, while assigning two jets from an undetermined base to Portland to be on alert status. The nearest permanent base is in Fresno, Calif., 750 miles away, which Air Guard officials said would decrease response times to the Pacific Northwest.
Washington and Oregon officials argued that would not be enough planes to defend "a target-rich environment" that includes cities and ports in Puget Sound and Portland, a border and seaway with Canada, dams along the Columbia and Snake rivers, the Umatilla Chemical Weapons Depot in Oregon and the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington.
In letters to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and commission Chairman Anthony Principi this summer, Cantwell and Lowenberg also complained that the Pentagon never consulted with Washington Air National Guard officials about the proposal.
The removal also would have created a confrontation between sovereign states and the federal government. Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski threatened to sue to prevent the loss, while Cantwell noted that the commission's legal counsel studied the National Guard realignments and the proposals "would require the commission to ignore the inherent authority of the chief executive of a state to command the militia of the state and the unique, dual nature of the National Guard as a service that responds to both state and federal authority."
Under a strict timetable, Rumsfeld in May submitted the Pentagon's recommendations of which military bases to close, shrink or grow to the commission and to Congress. The commission has until Sept. 8 to study and submit its recommendations to President Bush. Sept. 23 is the deadline for a presidential decision to accept or reject the commission's recommendations in entirety.