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"At
present, Vieques is the only place which provides the capability for all
elements of the East Coast-based Naval Expeditionary Forces to conduct
combined-arms training. ... There is a valid requirement for the Navy to
conduct [such] combined-arms exercises involving air-to-ground ordnance,
naval surface fire support, and the combined-arms live-fire training
needed to provide combat-ready forces for deployment."
Those are among
the principal findings of a special panel appointed by President Clinton
to: "(1) review the need for operations at Vieques [P.R.]; and (2)
explore alternative sites or methods [of training] that would meet the
needs" of the Department of Defense.
The four-member
panel, chaired by Assistant Secretary of Defense Francis M. Rush, was
appointed in the wake of an incident on 19 April of this year in which a
Marine pilot accidentally released two bombs, killing a civilian
security guard and injuring four others. The guard, Mr. David Sanes
Rodriguez, was the first nonmilitary person to die on the Vieques Island
range in the 58 years that the Navy, Marine Corps, and (to a lesser
extent) the Army have been using the range. During that same time frame
there has been no civilian casualty outside the range. Not one.
Nonetheless, all three services were ordered not to use the range until
the Rush Panel completed its review.
The panel,
appointed on 9 June, issued its report on 18 October, saying among other
things that the members are "convinced" that the combined-arms
training available only at Vieques "is vital to preparing deploying
forces for possible combat and that, without such training, the risk to
personnel is increased [emphasis added]."
Ignoring its
own findings, though, the panel also recommended to the president, and
to Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen, that the Navy be directed to
take numerous substantive actions that would: (a) significantly--and
immediately--diminish the scope and variety of the training now being
carried out at Vieques; and (b) eventually ("within five
years," the panel said) result in the transfer of the Vieques
training areas to Puerto Rico for other uses.
The panel's
recommendations are extremely specific--e.g., "immediately ...
reduce the expenditure of live fire (bombs, naval gunfire, and
artillery) by 50 percent from 1998 activity levels, and reduce the
availability of the impact area from 365 days per year to 130 days per
year." The panel provided no explanation as to how those figures
were developed--why 50 percent, for example, rather than 25 percent or
75 percent, or why 130 days rather than 90 or 180. Even more
disturbingly, the nebulous rationale used to justify these and other
recommendations is a hopeful assertion that various (unnamed and
unidentified) "new technologies, new techniques, and new weapons
systems will rapidly change training requirements and methods."
That is simply
not good enough. No peremptory action should ever be taken that
jeopardizes the combat readiness of the nation's armed services on such
a flimsy pretext. That working principle should be particularly evident
in an era in which the budgets of all of the nation's armed services
have been reduced year after year, in which the peacetime operating
tempo of those services is the highest in the nation's history, and in
which there is substantial and demonstrable evidence that U.S. military
readiness already has been reduced to an unacceptable level.
There are, of
course, several political issues involved. Many of Puerto Rico's most
prominent politicians obviously want the Navy out of Vieques. Spurious
charges have been made--ranging from partial truths and half-truths to
major exaggerations to absolute falsehoods--that the Navy is violating
human rights on Vieques, has been contaminating the land and polluting
the water, has been using napalm in its training operations, is bombing
daily and without notice, and stole the land to begin with. All of these
allegations are provably false--but, as so often happens, the
allegations receive the bulk of the publicity, while the truth just
limps along, miles and months behind.
Fortunately,
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner (R-Va.) and several
of his colleagues have introduced a "sense of the Senate"
resolution that should strengthen the commander in chief's resolve not
to take any action that would impose unjustifiable limits on the
"rigorous, realistic training" that the president himself
acknowledged (in a 22 September 1999 letter to the committee) "is
essential for success in combat and for protecting our national
security."
I have
discussed the Vieques situation with Senator Warner and obviously share
his concerns. I also have written to President Clinton, on behalf of the
70,000 members of the Navy League, asking him to support the continued
use of the Vieques range by the armed forces of the United States.
There is, in
the end, only one absolute truth involved, and it totally transcends
politics: Lives are at stake. The lives of the brave young men and women
who throughout their careers are so frequently put in Harm's Way to save
the lives and protect the human rights of others. These loyal and
disciplined young Soldiers, Sailors, Marines, Airmen, and Coast
Guardsmen have always accepted and carried out, unflinchingly and
without complaint, the often dangerous missions assigned them. They have
earned the right to expect loyalty in return from their country, from
the American people, and from their commander in chief.
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