8
University Daily Kansan
Nation/World
Monday. March 3,1986
Moving bases could be costly
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon estimates that moving the two huge U.S. military bases in the Philippines would cost more than $8 billion and put American military forces a long distance from potential hot spots, sources said.
A classified report containing the estimate is to be sent to Congress today, less than a week after the fall of Ferdinand Marcos and the installation of Corazon Aquino as president of the Philippines, a longtime U.S. ally.
The Philippines is home to Subic Bay Naval Station and Clark Air Base, the largest American bases outside the United States. The leases on those bases run out in 1991, and Aquino has refused to say whether she will let them stay.
The Pentagon report says that if those two bases are lost, the most stable potential spots to relocate would be Guam and Tinian islands, according to the sources, who spoke only on the condition they not be identified.
Both islands are under the control of the United States and are already home to U.S. military installations
"There are other places you could
Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, while declining to discuss contents of the report, told reporters yesterday after a television taping that the United States was optimistic about the future of its bases after 1991.
move the U.S. bases to, like Japan or Australia, but you have the same potential problem there as in the Philippines — you don't know if we'll be welcome down the road," explained one source.
"It's very important to the Philippines, it's very important for us, so we want to keep them there just as long as we can, and things look very favorable," he said.
At his last news conference, President Reagan said, "One cannot minimize the importance of those bases, not only to us, but the western world and certainly to the Philippines themselves."
Both bases would be difficult to replace, partly because of their sheer size. Clark sits on 131,000 acres while Subic is within a 36,000-acre district.
A key problem in moving the bases to Guam and Tinian would be the loss of a large, highly skilled work force. Relocation also would put American forces farther away from the Indian Ocean and western Pacific.
About 17,000 Filipinos work a Clark and 28,000 are employed at Subic. Many of the local workers at the naval base are third generation and they are able to provide almost any repairs that can be done at a U.S. yard, meaning Navy ships don't have to be sent all the way back to the United States for work.
At Guam, the United States maintains Andersen Air Force Base, which dates back to World War II. Some of the missions from Clark could be shifted there, but the island is 1,500 miles east of the Philippines and major and costly construction would be needed before the base could be the center of large operations, the sources said.
On Tinian, about 120 miles from Guam, the United States leases almost 20,000 acres, but development there would also require costly construction. The island was the launching point of the B-29 raids that dropped atomic bombs on Japan in August 1945.
While Aquino has refused to say flatly that she will permit the U.S. bases to remain, American officials are hopeful that an agreement can be worked out.
Town riled by decision to launch
CONCORD, N.H. — Residents of Christa McAuliffe's hometown expressed outrage and doubt yesterday about NASA's decision to launch the ill-fated shuttle Challenger despite warnings against the launch.
United Press International
"I just can't believe that the engineers were aware of the potential problems and NASA made the decision to launch," Angela Greene, a Concord resident, said.
McAuliffe, a Concord High School social studies teacher, would have been the first private citizen in space. She and six astronauts died aboard Challenger when the shuttle exploded.
Concord residents reacted angrily to the Presidential Disaster Commission's charges that NASA's decision-making process was flawed.
A spokesman for McAuliffe's husband, Steve, said he had no comment on the investigation.
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