Warner: Defense Closures 'Rigged'

"I'd have to consult with the governor . . . other members in the delegation and the local community because it would be a lot of cost, but I think Virginia has a very strong resolve that whatever is done by the BRAC Commission in this state is done with strict accordance to the law," the senator said. "It's simple. BRAC is designed to eliminate excess facilities, not designed to go back to redo business decisions with leasing structure, which you can do 365 days a year."

DuBois said efficiency led to the department's focus on Washington. "Is it necessary to have them here now? Should they be closer to their suppliers . . . their contractors . . . to testing and evaluation ranges?" DuBois asked. "Those are components of military value. . . . Those are the selection criteria and the prism they should use to make these judgments."

Department leaders have long targeted the area for cuts. In 2002, Rumsfeld expressed concern over the concentration of Defense facilities. That December, briefing reporters about the coming base closing process, DuBois said the area was a target-rich environment: "We have now huge -- excuse me -- very large military installations here in the Washington area. We also have an enormous amount of leased space in the Washington metropolitan area. And the question is, can we better utilize the military installations . . . and reduce the expense of leased space?"

According to the senator, base closing planners in March 2003 reported as an "assumption" that "moving from leased spaces to military installations will contribute to security of these functions."

The Pentagon has adopted anti-terrorism standards that will require leased sites to be set back at least 82 feet from surrounding traffic, citing the threat of truck bombs. The rule will take effect this fall, and virtually no leased sites in the region satisfy it.

The message was reinforced by DuBois in April 2004 and again Oct. 5. DuBois was reported in minutes as saying that "leadership expectations" included "(1) significant reduction of leased space in the [National Capital Region]; (2) reduce DOD presence in terms of activities and employees."

"The public record is clear," Warner said. "All installations' functions and activities were not considered equally."

At a Pentagon briefing yesterday, Rumsfeld defended the massive effort and cautioned commissioners against changing any of the Defense Department's recommendations.

"This was our chance in maybe a quarter of a century to reset our force, to look at military value . . . and have it all come together in a way that's in the interests of the taxpayers of America" and the armed forces, Rumsfeld said. "They didn't come out of midair. And there wasn't an ounce of politics in any aspect of it."

DuBois said that dispersing military facilities would "probably not" make the Washington area or the Pentagon less of a terrorism target but could make them more efficient and valuable.

"If there were no defense agencies, no leased space in Northern Virginia, would the Pentagon have been attacked on Sept. 11, 2001? Yes," DuBois said. "To say, 'Aha, now we have lessened some ephemeral sense of being in the cross hairs' is not really accurate. . . . But efficiency and effectiveness -- those are essentially the two sides of the [base closing] coin."