El Toro Too Vital, Expensive to Close : Global hot spots, new members of base-closure panel, high costs of moving can still affect facility’s future.

A pitched battle is underway over the future of the El Toro Marine base as we near a vote in November on the airport initiative. “New” options and players have entered the fray. While nobody pretends to know what the future portends, all the competing factions do appear convinced about one thing: shutting down El Toro is a “done deal.” But is it?

The circumstances, at least for now, seem to indicate as much. After all, El Toro is included on the official list prepared by the federal Base Closure Commission and is slated to close by the year 2000. And, even Congress and the President can’t delete a base on the list without starting all over again.

As compelling as all this sounds, there’s more to it than that--much more.

Soon, Congress will appoint a new, 1995 Base Closure and Realignment Commission.

The new commission can, at the urging of the secretary of defense, remove any base from the current list due to strategic need, or whose shutdown and relocation costs would exceed any long-term saving from closure.

Indeed, the Navy has recently written to the commanders of the Marine bases on the list, offering them the opportunity to request reconsideration, based on those strategic and cost terms.

As a member of the State Base Closure Task Force, I have written to the secretary of defense.

I have never believed that El Toro should be shut down. It’s simply too vital to our national security and too expensive to relocate.

I am not advocating or opposing a regional airport, commercialization or “joint use” of the base.

Indeed, the possibility that El Toro may be closed has created a dramatic economic opportunity.

But our foremost concern should be America’s fundamental security.

And this is what I believe was not addressed adequately by the last federal commission.

Everything I’ve experienced and know--after having served in World War II, Korea and Vietnam, and observing the permanent reality of international conflict and threats to our security--tell me it would be a tragic mistake to abandon El Toro.

This isn’t a question of “accepting” that the Cold War is over; it is! We clearly don’t need all the military installations we now have.

But we must maintain those that are strategically important to accommodate our restructured military.

Whether or not our military is downsized to the extent sought by Bill Clinton and the Democratic leaders in Congress, the fact is that America has determined we will never again need large land armies.

We will fight future conflicts with small, balanced rapid deployment forces.

Bases that are no longer needed for this new national defense strategy should be shut down, in order to reduce federal spending.

There’s no doubt that many of the units and squadrons based at El Toro could be relocated most anywhere in the United States without any strategic loss.

Transferring those troops and aircraft might well free up a significant portion of the base for commercialization, or to accommodate an airport if voters so decide.

But there is one special function that can only be performed there or someplace nearby, and that is to provide the means to launch our infantry/tank teams at Camp Pendleton and our artillery/rocket forces at Twentynine Palms.

El Toro has proven its strategic location, time and again: from the Cuban missile crisis, through Vietnam and to the Persian Gulf and the other hot spots that continue to emerge around the globe.

Then too there are the cost considerations. According to the Marine Corps, it would cost $1.6 billion to close El Toro, 30 times the annual cost to keep it open. That doesn’t even include the huge outlay needed to relocate and house 4,600 military families at San Diego’s Miramar base, as currently planned.

Miramar has virtually no housing for enlisted personnel, the lowest paid. These men and women, and their families, could be forced onto the expensive civilian economy.

So far, they have been overlooked in the government’s attempt to “cut costs.”

This could be one more unconscionable byproduct of a shortsighted decision that gambles away our nation’s defense while providing little or no effective relief to the taxpayers.

However, there is still the possibility that the basic strategic function served by El Toro will remain there or be met in equal terms elsewhere, nearby.

Veterans group leaders all over California, who share this concern as well as the concern for taxpayers and our enlisted personnel, are joining in pressing the secretary of defense and our congressional delegation.

It’s imperative that each of these concerns be revisited and squarely addressed by the new commission.