In the Pentagon's line of fire
BELLEVILLE, ILL.--In the antique malls and roadside cafes on East Main Street here, chatter about the economy is rarely theoretical. That's because nearby Scott Air Force Base pretty much is the economy in this sleepy county seat of 41,000. Scott employs more than 13,000 people, has scattered 14,000 retirees in the area, and pumps nearly $2 billion into the regional economy each year. "Businesses are going to drop like flies if that base goes," says 54-year-old Steve Sullivan from behind the bar at the smoky, family-owned Sullivan's Bar and Grill.
When Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld outlined his plans late last year for a new round of base closings, alarm bells here went off--loudly. Decisions won't be made for perhaps two years, but no one is waiting to discover Scott's fate. In the courthouse in Belleville, 19 miles away in the skyscrapers of St. Louis, in the halls of Congress, and in the offices of Chicago lobbyists, Scott's supporters are already fighting a multifront war.
It's a story that's unfolding in many locales--from Phoenix, where Luke Air Force Base could be at risk, to Natick, Mass., home of the Army Soldier Systems Center, which supplies equipment for troops. And it's all the result of a process called BRAC--Base Realignment and Closure--that's intended to minimize political meddling and has managed to shutter 97 bases since 1989. BRAC's latest round got underway three weeks ago when the Pentagon kicked off a yearlong assessment of its assets. The evaluation will be followed with base closure recommendations--first from Rumsfeld, then from an independent commission; the president can weigh in as well. The process will culminate in late 2005 or early 2006, when Congress casts one up-or-down vote on the final proposed list of bases to be closed. Because this is likely to be the last round of BRAC to be authorized by Congress, Rumsfeld says he's planning "the mother of all" BRACs. He's hoping the process will further his dream of a leaner military. Excess base capacity is hovering at about 25 percent, so 100 bases could vanish. Ray DuBois, the Pentagon official heading the BRAC effort, says he dodges daily phone calls from local officials and members of Congress terrified of BRAC.
Targeted. Scott's survival has been threatened before. In the last round of BRAC in 1995, Scott received the lowest rating of any major Air Force base, but ultimately none of those bases were shuttered. Since then, Belleville's congressman, Rep. Jerry Costello, and a local civic group, the Leadership Council Southwestern Illinois, have spearheaded an intense save-Scott effort. In an attempt to improve quality of life at the base--one of many factors considered in BRAC--the council persuaded area governments to spend hundreds of millions of dollars dragging MetroLink, the St. Louis rail system, out to Scott. Meanwhile, St. Clair County--which includes Belleville--and the state of Illinois helped fund a new, $330 million civilian airport on base property, which gave Scott personnel access to a longer runway and a state-of-the-art tower. "It's all about being proactive, and we wanted Scott to be ready to expand," explains County Chairman John Baricevic. The leadership council also spends $170,000 a year paying three heavy hitters to lobby for the base: Alan Dixon, a former U.S. senator from Illinois and previous BRAC commission chair; former Air Force Chief of Staff Ronald Fogleman; and former Northrop Grumman official Jim Owsley. They're the ones constantly calling DuBois at the Pentagon and interpreting bureaucrat-speak for folks back home.
But even with those connections, Scott's future is uncertain. Command centers like Scott can be uniquely vulnerable. Scott houses the U.S. Transportation Command and Air Mobility Command, offices that monitor airplane location and military equipment shipments. "It's easier to move a person and a computer than it is to relocate a major aircraft hangar," one former Pentagon official says. But Scott's supporters say the base will earn high marks on other BRAC criteria, like preventing encroachment--development right up to the rim of the base--and promoting "jointness," the practice of housing both Army and Air Force personnel and reservists in the same facility. Scott soars on other fronts as well. "I've been with the Air Force for 33 years, and I've never seen community support like I have here," says Col. Oral Carper, the commander of the 932nd Airlift Wing stationed at Scott. He's standing between a doctor and an apple orchard owner at Fischer's Restaurant, where 50 Air Force personnel and 50 civilians meet monthly for a meat-and-potatoes dinner. He adds, "These people don't deserve to lose this."
This story appears in the February 2, 2004 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.
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