Lowell Sun
Thursday, February 5, 2004

Rumsfeld: Research key to Hanscom's evaluation

By Ian Bishop, Sun Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said yesterday military
bases specializing in research and development, such as Hanscom Air Force
Base, will not be measured against larger installations during the upcoming
round of base closures next year.

Rumsfeld, pressed by Rep. Marty Meehan during an Armed Services Committee
meeting yesterday, said the Bedford base will be compared with its peer
research facilities from all four armed-service branches during the
Pentagon's upcoming mission to trim a quarter of its stateside bases
beginning next year.

"There are no questions that there are going to be different requirements
depending on the activity," Rumsfeld said. "None of the criteria, I suspect,
would apply in every instance.

"What (the criteria) are designed to do is to create a tick-list that people
would think about as they were going through this process," he added.

Rumsfeld's comments are welcome news to Meehan, a Lowell Democrat, who fears
the current draft criteria to guide the base closure process overlooks
Hanscom's intangibles its proximity to world-renowned academic and defense
industries.

"I was encouraged that Secretary Rumsfeld's public acknowledgement assures
that technical, research facilities like Hanscom won't be evaluated with the
same criteria as bases that host armored infantry units," Meehan said after
the meeting. "No one facility could be adequately evaluated by the draft
criteria."

Meehan said the Armed Services Committee meetings offer a rare public forum
to compel the Pentagon to publicly acknowledge Hanscom.

Rumsfeld's testimony came a day before the Massachusetts congressional
delegation's planned summit today with Pentagon officials. Gov. Mitt Romney
is flying into the nation's capital to add some Republican heft to the
effort to sway Pentagon brass in favor of Hanscom.

Rumsfeld said he intends to sign off on a final set of criteria next week.

With $3 billion in economic impact and more than 10,000 jobs at stake,
Massachusetts politicians are trying to leverage all of their political
clout to spare the base.

The preliminary criteria released late last year did not bode well for
Hanscom. Its broad parameters placed weight on raw resources, such as runway
lengths Hanscom weaknesses.

During the public comment period, which ended this week, the Massachusetts
lawmakers sought in a letter to "make public the more detailed goals" of the
upcoming round of military base closures and to sway the Pentagon to include
a subset of criteria that places greater weight on the technical and
indigenous values of bases that are dedicated to research and development.

Meehan said today's meeting with Pentagon officials will be a continuation
of that effort.

Congress will ultimately have a final say on the criteria to be used in the
process. Once it passes on Capitol Hill, however, the decisions on the
fourth and final round of base closures will be in the hands of an
independent commission.

"I'm optimistic about the result," Sen. Edward Kennedy said of Hanscom.

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