To view the slides used in this briefing click here.

 

            MR. WYNNE:  Good morning, everyone.  I'm Mike Wynne, the under secretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics.  Deputy Under Secretary Phil Grone here with me at the podium; representatives from each of the Joint Cross-Service Group leaders are here; leaders from the military departments are here; and Vice Admiral Chanik of the Joint Chiefs, are also here with me today. 

 

            Today's announcement is a very important component of the military transformation that President Bush asked us to conduct in 2001.  This has been done to satisfy the law codified by the Congress, and was well informed by the Global Posture Review that's been underway for a few years.

 

            Those of you in this room have the state-by-state listing of each installation affected by either closure or realignment or expansion that involves a change in military or civilian personnel. 

 

            For anyone else who is interested, this information will be available as soon as we conclude here, or at 11:00 a.m., on the Internet at www.defenselink.mil/brac. 

 

            Since our time is limited, I'm going to take just a few minutes to give an overview of the report, explain how the process worked, briefly describe what you can expect to find in the report, and then wrap up with the next steps in the process.  I will not be going into the rationale for individual installations, but I do hope that you all will take the time to read the report, which has detail.

 

            Affected communities will be offered support and assistance through the Office of Economic Adjustment, following the completion of the process.  The president has reinforced our commitment with an executive order relating to Defense Economic Adjustment.

 

            Okay, let's go to the first slide. 

 

            This slide really represents the team, if you will, the top-tier team that organized the BRAC process throughout the two-plus years of its existence.  Base Realignment and Closure was a process that literally involved people across the nation and the leadership at every level.   Take particular note of the seven cross-service groups, which unlike any previous BRAC round, were empowered to make recommendations for the secretary's consideration.

 

            Now let's go to the slide comparing this round of BRAC recommendations to past rounds of BRAC.  As you can see, we are recommending the closure of 33 of the 318 major military installations in the United States, and the realigning of 29 more.  We are also recommending the closure or realignment of another 775 smaller military locations.  As indicated yesterday, the total projected net present value savings of these actions over a 20-year period is just under $49 billion.  If the savings resulting from global reposturing are included in our process, the total net savings is just under $65billion.  The annual recurring savings, as you can see on the chart, is larger than each of the previous rounds of base realignment.

 

            Now let's go to the some of the charts that show some of the bases that make up those numbers.  First we have the major bases that we are recommending for closure, and I won't go through each one of them.  Next we have the major bases we are recommending for realignment.  And finally, we have the list of installations where we are recommending actions that will gain more than 400 military or civilian personnel.

 

            Now let's go back to a little bit to the process of how we got to these recommendations.  I'm sure you noticed yesterday that Secretary Rumsfeld, General Myers and the service chiefs all had the same theme of jointness.  That's because jointness is key to creating military value.  That was our goal.

 

            And these Joint Cross-Service Groups were key to making this jointness a reality into this process.  They each were chaired by a senior executive or flag officer, with representation from each of the military services, from the Joint Staff and from the relevant Defense agencies involved.

 

            What I'd like to do now is give you a little bit of detail in the process.  And to do that, I would like to invite up to the podium the head of the Medical Joint Cross-Service Group, Lieutenant General Peach Taylor, as well as the vice chief of staff of the United States Army, in a minute.

 

            Thank you.

 

            GEN. TAYLOR:  Good morning.  I'm Lieutenant General George Peach Taylor Jr., the Air Force surgeon general.  I've been the chairman of the Medical Joint Cross-Service Group. 

 

            For the past two years, my group has been working recommendations to the secretary for changes to the military health care system.  The scope of our work included all the military clinics, hospitals, medical centers, all the military health care training platforms and the military biomedical research activities.  I was very privileged to have on my team the Navy surgeon general, the deputy surgeon general of the Army, the chief medical officer for the Marine Corps, the Joint Staff surgeon and the chief financial officer from the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs.  The talents of the entire military and civilian staff who spent thousands of hours working this project were frankly unbelievable.

 

            I've been a flight surgeon in the armed forces for 25 years. I've dedicated my professional life to the men and women of the armed forces.  Our goal was to mold a 21st-century military medical infrastructure for a 21st-century military.

 

            We know that there are over 9 million military beneficiaries counting on us.  At the same time, we know we have men and women in harm's way a long way from home.  In every step of the process, we kept our focus on meeting their needs while sustaining and enhancing the department's expeditionary medical capability.

 

            Our group applied these principles to the eight BRAC criteria described by the secretary yesterday. Overseen by the General Accounting Office and the DOD inspector general, we gathered certified data from the field to assess capacity and create a quantitatively derived measure to inform our assessment of the military value of the entire military value of the entire military, medical, and dental infrastructure in the United States.

 

            Based on an analysis of this data, we looked for opportunities to eliminate unnecessary infrastructure while creating a better, more effective and more efficient military health care system for our nation.  Our recommendations call for an investment of $2.4 billion in medical activities that will result in over $5 billion dollars in reduced spending over the next 20 years, and over $400 million in ongoing annual savings.

 

            As the secretary mentioned yesterday, many of these scenarios are knitted together in important ways.  I'd like to give you an example of one medical recommendation concerning the military health care activities here in the Washington, D.C. area.

 

            We crafted a single comprehensive recommendation for the National Capital Region.  It was approved by the service secretary, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and finally by the secretary of Defense.  We recommend investing almost $1 billion in the National Capital Region to create the new Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, and construct a new 165-bed community hospital at Fort Belvoir, Virginia.

 

            Let me describe what this new Walter Reed National Military Medical Center would look like.  It will be the centerpiece of military health care, clinical practice, education, and research.  It will rival Mayo Clinic, Johns Hopkins, and the other great medical institutions of the world, and it will be jointly staffed.  Just as we have jointly staffed hospitals in Iraq and at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, we foresee the new Walter Reed National Military Medical Center staffed with the finest personnel from the Army, Navy, and Air Force working together, just as we do in combat.

 

            Looking at the entire National Capital Region, it was our military judgement that the best location for this new Walter Reed National Military Medical center is on the Bethesda, Maryland campus of today's National Naval Medical Center.   We expand the Bethesda campus to create a total of 300 inpatient beds and add additional clinical training and research space.  Some of the unique aspects of this location include the ability to partner with the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, our military medical school, and the National Institutes of Health across the street.  This new Walter Reed National Military Medical Center will lead the way to the next generation of military health care.

 

            Along with our recommendations for creating a new joint center for medical enlisted training at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, and six new joint centers of excellence in biomedical research, we will be able to move all the medical activities from the current Walter Reed main post, keeping the housing and satellite research facilities intact. And we will be able to convert the medical center at Andrews Air Force Base to a clinic with an ambulatory surgery center. It is critically important to note that throughout the construction, and after completion, we will be able to provide the same amount of health care as today to our 400,000-plus beneficiaries in the greater D.C. area, and continue world-class medical care for our returning injured and ill troops:  great care, premier facilities, but a different location for some of our patients.

 

            Remember that I told you this recommendation calls for the investment of nearly $1 billion.  As importantly, the results of a full implementation of this will be a savings in just the National Capital Region of over $100 million every year forever.  In the end, we will have built a 21st century joint medical infrastructure for our21st century armed forces, our wonderful patients, and our dedicated and talented medical and dental personnel.

 

            The recommendations contained in this BRAC report are our assessment of what is best for the DOD as the department boldly moves forward under the leadership of Secretary Rumsfeld.  I'm pleased and gratified with the Medical Cross-Service Group's efforts.  We look forward to the commission's review of these recommendations, keeping in their focus, as we have, the principles that have guided our deliberation:  to provide access to the highest-quality health care for our magnificent troops, their families, and the retirees who have served our nation so well.

 

            Thank you.  Mr. Wynne.

 

            MR. WYNNE:  Thank you very much, General Taylor.

 

            Now I'd like to invite up to talk about how we tried to involve people from all over the world, if you will, to include the combatant commanders and their immediate staffs, I'd like to reach out to General Dick Cody, the vice chief of staff, and General Steve Blum of the National Guard Bureau.

 

            GEN. CODY:  Thank you, Secretary Wynne.  First off, on the discussion that just came from General Peach Taylor, the Army leadership is committed to continuing to provide at Walter Reed, until the transition to the National Medical Region Center located at Bethesda, we're committed to providing the same high-quality healthcare to all our soldiers and all our recipients of health care until we make that transition.  And as he stated, we'll be building a very large hospital down at Fort Belvoir to take care and balance the medical requirements of the 21st century, and we're committed to doing that.

 

            What I've been asked to do this morning is talk to you a little bit about how we're going to transform the Reserve component.  You'll notice, when you get your packets, that we're proposing to the commission closure of 176 Army Reserve facilities, but also building125 new multi-component Armed Forces Reserve Centers distributed throughout the United States and Puerto Rico.  At the same time, we're proposing to close some of our smaller 211 Army National Guard facilities and relocate their tenants and units into these new 125Armed Forces Reserve Centers.

 

            This is all part of the transformation of the total Army --active, Guard and Reserve.  And during this entire process, we've worked with General Blum and the Army Reserve and the Army National guard, as well as with the TAGs (The Adjutant General), as we restructure, in particular the Army National Guard, into a modular force that mirrors the force of the active components, the brigade combat teams, and restructure the Army Reserve into the combat support and combat service support structure that mirrors the active component, but also take into light the Title 31 responsibilities that the governors and TAGs have for homeland security and homeland defense.  This will better posture our Reserve component and team them with active component units for the --what we call the Army force generation model.  And in the weeks to come, we'll be providing background information and briefings to you on how this Army force generation model will provide America with the right balance of the active component and Reserve component, but more particularly, it will provide more predictability for our Reserve component soldiers.

 

            I'd like to have Steve Blum comment, because he's been actively engaged with us every step of the way.

 

            Steve?

 

            GEN. BLUM:  Thank you, sir.  As General Cody said, all of the things he said are absolutely true.  We've been in a collaborative process with the Army now for almost two years putting together these recommendations that you're starting to see this morning.  And the bottom line is, at the end of the day, the Army National Guard will be a more ready, reliable and accessible force, and we'll be able to leverage the joint capabilities of both the Army and the Air National Guard so that the governors can protect their citizenry here at home better than they can now, and we do a better job providing Army and Air Guard units to the Army and Air Force, to the combatant commanders overseas.  That's really the bottom line.

 

            MR. WYNNE:  Thank you very much.

 

            Admiral Chanik from the Joint Staff would like to make a comment on the combatant commander outreach.

 

            ADM. CHANIK:  Good morning.  I'll just do a postscript to what you heard from General Cody and General Blum.  They talked about the fact that we have outreach and we've tried to make this process as inclusive as possible across the military departments and across the active and Reserve component. 

 

            The one part of the military that wasn't talked to, of course, is the combatant commanders, the nine combatant commanders, some who reside inside of the continental United States, some who are abroad. Those combatant commanders and their staffs were part of this process from the beginning.  They were very intimately involved, starting in late fall, through my staff.  And their inputs were constantly worked into this process as it developed.  And in fact, ended just last week as they had a chance to look at the final recommendations that were going to be proposed to the secretary.

 

            So, from the very beginning, combatant commanders had an input into the process right to the very end, and have looked at this very, very closely.  Their comments were, of course, given to the vice chairman and the chairman, who, as you heard yesterday, were a part of the process in the Infrastructure Executive Council, in the Infrastructure Steering Group.

 

            MR. WYNNE:  Thank you very much.

 

            Let me just wrap up with a few more comments on the process, and then tell you about the description of the books, and then we'll get to some questions.

 

            It was a complex and orderly process, but it resulted in a well-developed set of recommendations that the department is submitting to the commission today.  Thousands of people were involved, both civilian and military, from every level; from combatant commanders, from our National Guard participants, all the way up to the secretary of Defense. The secretary's legal submission to Congress is in two parts.  Part one contains an overview of the BRAC process and recommendations, an unclassified edition of the 20-year force structure plan and several statistical roll-ups.  Part two of Volume 1 contains all recommendations organized by military departments and the joint cross-service groups.  Volume 2 is the classified 20-year force structure plan that was previously provided to Congress and will be submitted to the commission for use on a restricted basis.  The remaining volumes of the report, 3 through 12, provide a more detailed discussion of each military department's and joint cross-service group's process and rationale for its recommendations.  These volumes contain militarily valuable data and detail to assist the commission in its work and are currently undergoing a security review.

 

            This concludes, really, the department's efforts in Base Realignment and Closure of 2005.  These recommendations have now been forwarded to the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission. They will now assess the department's recommendations and exercise their independent authority. 

 

            The entirety of this process is expected to be done by the end of this calendar year.  Further inquiries, therefore, should be directed to the commission.  And I want to thank Secretary Principi and the commission members for their service to the country.  I know that the hearings have already commenced, and will be participating myself next week.

 

            Before I now conclude, I would like to just take a minute to recognize the hard work that went into these recommendations. Representatives from all of our services, along with members of the secretary's staff, have worked tirelessly with Phil Grone; Pete Potochney, our director of base realignment and closure; and others, to make sure that we were data driven, with military value as primary, in making these recommendations.

 

            We would be happy now to take your questions.  Charlie, why don't you start us out?

 

            Q: I'd like to just get a couple of questions in.  What defines a major base?  And while we realize this is overall being done for the good of the military, who are the winners and losers here?  A lot of Army people are coming home.  In terms of final numbers, who are the winners and losers -- Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines?

 

            MR. WYNNE:  One at a time there.  As usual, you ask a very intriguing set of questions as you put together one.

 

            First of all, we have taken a more structured look at the definition of major and minor and at the definition of major realignment and major gains.  What we have done is we have taken an arbitrary value of $100 million in what we call plant replacement value to be a major base. Of those, we've identified approximately 318 that are over $100million, and could be considered to be, in that objective look, a major base.  In the past, the BRAC was not quite as precise or structured in its engagement.

 

            To get to a minor, or a realignment, what we decided was major was if there were more than 400 personnel affected.  And so, you will see the 29 realignments -- and those were dominantly negative realignments -- were of 400 or more.

 

            The gainers, on the other hand -- one of the things that you talked about are the -- the gainers are principally oriented towards a400 or more personnel affected on the positive side.

 

            As to your question about winners and losers, let me just address it this way.  This was a capability review, aimed at jointness.  And I think, as Chairman Myers pointed out yesterday and as General Cody said today, we think all the services are, in fact, going to gain from this event.

 

            One of the remarkable features of this round, if you will, of base realignment and closures was that the joint cross-service groups, which were made up by and large of service personnel, were able to serve us their recommendations; and they were then considered very heavily by the services in, if you will, knitting together the integrated recommendations.  And that's one of the reasons that we would say to you, we don't see it in a way of individual services anymore, because that is kind of the old way of thinking.  We now see it in terms of how does jointness work, and how can we make it work better?

 

            Yes.  Sir?

 

            Q: Yesterday we heard from Secretary Rumsfeld about the annual savings and then the projected savings over two decades.  What about the costs for actually closing some of these bases and realigning? The total costs for -- well, the total tag of what this will cost to do?

 

            MR. WYNNE:  That's fair -- that's a fair question, and it was actually on the comparison chart, but I'll reiterate it for you.  This is really saving a gross total of $3 for every dollar that we are investing, but we're netting about $2.  So the gross -- therefore, the gross cost that we're thinking about, or the nonrecurring investment, is right at $24 billion.  And --

 

            Q: But the secretary's data was net of costs -- (inaudible).

 

            MR. WYNNE:  But the secretary's data was net of costs, so the secretary's data was $49 billion, which is approximately $2 for every dollar invested.

 

            Yes, sir?

 

            Q: A number of communities taking big hits in this -- Atlanta, one example.  Can you detail what kind of adjustment assistance is going to be out there from the DOD and the DOL?

 

            MR. WYNNE:  We are going to put some grants for studies. We have a new -- a presidential executive order that's in outreach. And we're assigning a program manager to each major affected community, so that they will have somebody to turn to and call to, and somebody to perhaps take them through what we think is a very difficult period of time here.

 

            Q: But is that just hand-holding or -- you know, what kind of assistance is out there?  What kind of financial and other --

 

            MR. WYNNE:  We're going to try to provide them with some assistance via grants, so that they can conduct some studies.  But this is something I think the community is going to have to individually assess.

 

            Yes, sir?

 

            Q:  You mentioned Walter Reed.  What are other examples of sort of new joint sort of bases that you're creating in this realignment?

 

            MR. WYNNE:  Well, one of the major commitments that the services have all made is for a Joint Strike Fighter initial pilot training base.  And they're going to have that all at one location, which is a remarkable change from history, where we may have had the same model airplane, but they were all taught at different places.

 

            Early on in the secretary's tenure here, he asked about truck drivers, and he asked about where they were trained.  And so finally we are going to have a joint integrated transportation school.  And I think the list of it is probably beyond my ken right now, but those give you a little bit of think piece on it.

 

            Q: Where are those two places going to be, sir?

 

            Q: Yeah.  Where are those two properties?

 

            Q: Excuse me.  Where are those two places going to be --initial training and the truck driver school?

 

            MR. WYNNE:  The initial training base that I know of is down at Eglin Air Force Base.  I'm not sure that I can be accurate, but I encourage you to read the book on where the transportation base is going to be.

 

            Yeah, I'm sure --

 

            Q: Some states spend hundreds of thousands -- even millions --of dollars hiring consultants and lobbyists to crunch numbers and watch over what you're doing and meet with you and so on.  Other states didn't.  Did -- for those that did, did that help your --inform your considerations at all?

 

            MR. WYNNE:  We were actually not statutorily allowed to consider, if you will, offerings from the states or from communities in our assessment, because we really do not have the authority, if you will, to give mandates to people to spend money or do anything.  So by and large, I would have to say that the consultants may have done a great job, but it is in the eye of the beholder.  And I think you have to turn to their customer base and find out if they felt like they did a good job for them.

 

            Q: What access did they have --

 

            Q: (Off mike) -- in which they helped?

 

            MR. WYNNE:  Please.

 

            Q: Why are you shutting down Sub Base New London and Portsmouth Naval Shipyard?  And what, if anything, do those closures tell us about the future of the -- the shrinkage of the submarine fleet, especially the older SSN-688?

 

            MR. WYNNE:  I would say that individual looks and rationales at the base structure have to be judged on their own merits, and I'd encourage you to do the research. 

 

            Q: That's why we're here today.

 

            MR. WYNNE:  What we were attempting to do is to create a process to look at, across the board, what is the military value and to give you insight into what was the process that resulted into this.

 

            Q: Can you give us any insight on those bases?

 

            Q: Do you plan to maintain your ships using a larger mix of private contractors because you're not going to have these shipyards do work in-house?

 

            MR. WYNNE:  Actually, we found that we were -- we had across the board sufficient capacity to maintain, if you will, all the statutory and support elements that were necessary or that were forecasted.  And this was the element of surge that was considered throughout our process in all of the venues.

 

            Yes, sir.

 

            Q: This consolidation of Guard and Reserve posts -- if I did the math right, 387 posts are going to become 125.  I may not be understanding that correctly.  But does that mean that Guard and Reserve members are going to have to, you know, go a lot further to drill?  I mean, is there concern that -- I mean, this could affect recruiting and retention because people have to -- I mean, their base is a lot further away or they don't have as many places to go.

 

            MR. WYNNE:  That's an excellent question.  I'm going to ask General Blum to help me out with that one.

 

            GEN. BLUM:  We actually --

 

            GEN. BLUM:  Thank you.  We actually hope it will affect recruiting and retention, but in a positive manner.  We have – the demographics of our nation is not static, and some of our buildings have been around for over a hundred years.  The demographics that once supported those installations have migrated and moved to new and different places.  By closing or divesting our self of inefficient facilities and moving to places where we have better demographics and constructing joint facilities, I think we give better opportunity to the members of the Reserve component, make it more convenient and give them more choices as -- how they want to serve in Department of Defense. 

 

            So it's a good question, but I think it's a very positive trend, frankly.

 

            Q: Can I just follow on that, please?

 

            Q: Mr. Wynne, can you close the loop on the lobbying?  What if any access did any of the paid or elected representatives of these communities have in the process, meeting with you or any of your staff members?

 

            MR. WYNNE:  We never turn down meetings with our elected representatives, and who they bring to the meeting is their choice. And I would say we've had pretty interesting and terrific interaction with our elected representatives throughout the process, and – but many of them are involved in several activities that are in fact involved with the department.  And several of them may use the opportunity, if you will, to present good arguments.

 

            Q: I think the question -- can I just finish the loop on that please, sir?  I think the question --

 

            MR. WYNNE:  I think you have.

 

            Q: No, no, no, I haven't.

 

            MR. WYNNE:  Tony.

 

            Q    Right.  On the net savings versus cost, at what point do you start realizing net savings?  You got $24 billion going forward.  In the first four rounds, you -- in 1988, 1998 was the break even, the point where you started realizing net savings.  What are your calculations for the first year of the 20 years that you'll realize the $50 billion?

 

            MR. WYNNE:  Well, you'll see that there are over 222 recommendations.  Some of which, in fact, start to pay back immediately; some of which take some time.  I would say that our investment in medical research will take some time.  So to be precise about the answer, we calculate recurring annual savings following the completion of our investment in that particular project.  And that means that if it takes a year to complete the investment, then we calculate the recurring savings in year two.  If it takes five years to complete the initial investment, then we calculate the annual recurring savings in year six. 

 

            Q: (Inaudible) -- facilities-driven.  You can't say that in five years from now we'll spend $24 billion and then we'll start realizing these net savings --

 

            MR. WYNNE:  Again, there's 222 recommendations, some of which are-- a couple of personnel moves, and then they begin to pay back right away.

 

            Yes, sir?

 

            Q: Perhaps General Cody or someone from the Army could address this; the Fort Knox -- 10,000 military out.  Is that a whole unit, or what is that?  And also, with Bliss, an increase of 15,000 military jobs.  A lot of us assume that would be the 1st AD coming out of Germany.  Can anybody -- (inaudible)?

 

            MR. WYNNE:  I will tell you that -- again, we're not going to go into specifics.  However, this was integrated with the integrated Global Posture Review, and you are going to see some increases in places where the Army is reaching for locations in the domestics.  And I can tell you that if you look -- not too carefully, but if you look at the big hump -- big lumps, they're at Fort Bliss and Fort Riley, Kansas.

 

            GEN. CODY:  (Off mike.)  Mike -- (inaudible.)

 

            MR. WYNNE:  Dick?

 

            GEN. CODY:  I thought you handled it very well.

 

            MR. WYNNE:  Well, thank you.

 

            GEN. CODY:  When you look at just units returning on the Global Posturing, which is still being worked out, you miss all the other moving pieces.  When you talk about Fort Knox in particular, it's part of a much larger set of Army transformation -- it is really transformational.  You'll see that the Armor Center is being moved down to Fort Benning to make the Maneuver Center for the Army.  And also you'll see at Fort Sill, where the Air Defense Artillery School is moving from Fort Bliss up to Fort Sill to make the Net Fire Center.

 

            All this is in concert with the overall Army transformation; if you take a look at our Brigade Combat Teams, and how they're structured -- heavy, light, and Stryker Brigade -- there's great synergy in the doctrine training and organizational piece to move and combine the Armor Center with the Infantry Center, and with the Fire-- Net Fire Center at Fort Sill.

 

            What Knox gets in return, because it is a high-value -- has high military value -- it gets a Brigade Combat Team; it will get the Sessions Command, the three-star Sessions (sp) Command, the Cadet Command, the HRC -- Human Resources Command will be moving out of leased space here and going up to Fort Knox.  And so we combined a lot of our personnel, from Sessions all the way through Cadet, as well as those who manage our personnel at Fort Knox, as well as a returning back to Fort Knox, because of some of their training areas, to tie into, again, holistically, things like Camp Atterbury, Fort Knox, and the Fort Campbell training corridor and the airspace that does it, we'll put a Combat Maneuver Brigade there at Fort Knox.

 

            Q

 

            And the 1st AD is going to Bliss?

 

            GEN. CODY:  We're right now working out what the patches are. What's more important is the capabilities that each one of these posts provide.  And so -- and all the patches will change once we get done with the realignment and the global positioning, all the patches will change so we can properly realign them in concert with the transformational of the Brigade Combat Teams.

 

            Q: Okay, one last thing.  If you're going to close Monroe, where is TRADOC going?

 

            GEN. CODY:  TRADOC is going to Fort Eustis.

 

            Q: Sir, do you have somebody from the Navy that can do for the fleet what the general just did for the Army?

 

            MR. WYNNE:  We're here -- we only have a couple more questions to be done. 

 

            How about you?

 

            Q: What are the broad conclusions you guys made on arsenals and depots?  Greater joint activity there, greater privatization there?

 

            MR. WYNNE (?):  Most of the arsenals were already joint, and in truth, they were -- and many of the depots have been repairing joint process.  So what we did was we analyzed the total capacity of each of the depots, knowing that they were already operating jointly.  For example, the Marine Corps Logistics Base at Barstow was doing some Army vehicles; Anniston was doing some Marine Corps vehicles.  So the capacity analysis was key. 

 

            Q: Sir, what's the time frame for the actual closing of bases? These past rounds have sometimes taken years for posts to actually be shut.  What's the earliest that a post could be shut; over what time will people have to move from here to there?

 

            MR. WYNNE (?):  Well, the first thing you have to realize is that we don't interrupt operations.  We plan this so as not to interrupt any operational areas or -- and we will begin, as we say, a soon as the commission is completed, then starts our, if you will, detailed planning with the services as to what is on the ultimate list, and we will getting to make sure that we always move positively with respect to operations.

 

            MR. GRONE:  If I could comment on that just for a second with regard to the timing.  All of the actions that are recommended, if the commission approves them and they work their way through the process and become law, we must begin to initiate those actions within two years, and we must complete them within six.  So that's the time frame in which we are working.  And as part of that process, of course, we are -- we'll be working very hard to expedite the mission move, because getting to the mission move, of course, supports the ongoing Transformation that is the part and the reason why we are doing this process, to get the -- and support military transformation.

 

            But more importantly, as we move the mission, and particularly where there is a major base closure, our ability to move the mission leads to expeditious community reuse.  And if we can't move the mission, it makes it hard to get to community reuse.  And with regard to community reuse, we'll be putting on our website, the BRAC website that Mr. Wynne referred to, all of the assistance programs, not just the Department of Defense in terms of worker retraining and other programs and planning grants that we provide, but also access to the programs that our sister federal agencies provide for people and for planning.

 

            So the basic answer to your question is start within two, end within six.  And our objective is to do that as quickly as we can. 

 

            MR. WYNNE:  My earpiece was crackling and we have, actually, a representative of the Navy to try to give once over the world for --maybe get to some of your questions.

 

            ADM. WILLARD:  Good morning, I'm Admiral Bob Willard and I'm the Navy Vice Chief of Naval Operations. 

 

            Your question again please?

 

            Q: Why are you shutting down Sub Base New London and Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, and do those shutdowns have anything to tell us about the future of the submarine fleet, specifically refueling 688s?

 

            ADM. WILLARD:  Yeah, I'll avoid getting into very specific details on either of those facilities, but try and echo some things that Admiral Clark said yesterday in his press conference. 

 

            Remember that BRAC is viewing into the next 20 years.  And what we're attempting to do is shape our installations around the 21stcentury Navy, in our case.  If you think back to two years ago when this BRAC was initiated, all of the services were experiencing excess infrastructure.  And part of this BRAC -- a major part of this BRAC has been to view into those excesses, try and look forward in years in terms of the programs that we'll deliver, the type of ships and submarines that we'll have in the fleet, and to try and match the infrastructure with a consideration for surge with that future navalforce. 

 

            So when we view across Navy installations, the ports, the submarine bases, the industrial infrastructure; we have viewed that with military value foremost in our consideration and trying to get the size right of these installations relative to the fleet.

 

            Q: Are you forward-basing more into the Pacific to Guam with the sub fleet?

 

            ADM. WILLARD:  Say that once again.

 

            Q: Are you going to be forward-basing to Guam with the submarine fleet, some of these --

 

            ADM. WILLARD:  The BRAC was considering the forward-basing issues, the IGPBS process that has been in play and, as everyone's well aware, there is in fact a submarine force that's located forward in Guam.  We're in the process, and have been for some time, of considering where to posture our submarine fleet most optimally.  That is still ongoing and really doesn't directly relate to this specific issue, the issue of the submarine infrastructure in the Northeast.

 

            MR. WYNNE:  Thank you very much, Admiral Willard.

 

            Q: Admiral, would that be true of carriers, what you just said about submarines, that you're looking at where you should place carriers, the possibility of a forward-deployed carrier in the Pacific?

 

            ADM. WILLARD:  Very simply, we are always looking at the posturing of our aircraft carriers.  Outside of BRAC, we have made carrier moves multiple times in the past, and we still regard our ability to adjust our force infrastructure and locations as necessary and as the world security situation dictates.  So I would argue that in the past, now and in the future, we're always attempting to put the fleet where it will do the most good and offer the United States the best security.

 

            MR. WYNNE:  Thank you very much.

 

            So that will really conclude us.  And I thank you for your time and attention.  And I urge you to take a look.  The books, I think, are available as you leave.

 

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