Base Realignment and Closure, 2005

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The information on this page may change as a result of the 2005 U.S. Base Realignment and Closure Program (BRAC 2005).

The preliminary 2005 Base Realignment and Closure list was released by the United States Department of Defense on May 13, 2005. It is the fifth Base Realignment and Closure ("BRAC") proposal generated since the process was created in the 1990s. It recommends closing 33 major United States military bases and the "realignment" (either enlarging or shrinking) of 29 others.

Justifications

Pentagon officials say that, if adopted in full by the nine-member BRAC Commission (a historically unlikely scenario), the recommendations would save almost $50 billion over 20 years.

Gen. Richard Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on May 12, 2005 that the two-year effort to produce the list had several objectives:

• better integrate active and reserve units
• rearrange forces to be able to act around the globe
• make the military more flexible and agile
• improve cooperation between military service branches while training and fighting
• convert unneeded capacity into warfighting capability

Recommendations

Major bases slated for closure (by branch of the military):

• 14 major Army bases
• 9 major Navy bases
• 10 major Air Force bases

Major facilities slated for closure incude:

• Fort McPherson in Georgia
• Naval Submarine Base New London in Connecticut
• Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota
• Cannon Air Force Base in New Mexico

Major facilities slated for realignment incude:

• Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Maryland
• Army Human Resource Command (HRC) in Missouri
• Naval Station Great Lakes in Illinois
• Grand Forks Air Force Base in North Dakota
• Eielson Air Force Base and Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska

The process of closing bases and moving people and activities would initially cost money. Somewhat less than half of the eventual savings would come directly from eliminating the cost of running closed bases. More than half would come from consolidating administrative, technical, and industrial services; and by increasing the amount of joint military services and facilities available for education, training, intelligence, medical, supply and storage.

External links

• BRAC 2005 official website
• Detailed BRAC Recommendations (in PDF format)
• Short summary of closure and realignment impacts by state (in PDF format) - MSNBC
• "BRAC 2005: Closings, Realignments to Reshape Infrastructure" article
• "BRAC 2005: Rumsfeld Recommends 5 to 11 Percent Cut in Infrastructure" article

See also: Base Realignment and Closure, 2005, 1990s, 2005, Alaska, Base Realignment and Closure, Cannon Air Force Base, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Closure