Two Key Bases Spared, Others Nixed
Base Closing Recommendations Go To Congress, President Bush
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Second Life For A Navy Base
After being shut down in 1992, the Glenview Naval Air Station is now a billion dollar downtown. Cynthia Bowers reports that the base may offer hope for other cities currently facing closure.
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Some Bases Getting The Boot
During day one of a three-day hearing, a special commission began naming which Army and Navy bases would likely be closed or downsized. Susan Roberts reports.
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Life After Base Closings
CBS News' Cynthia Bowers talks at length with Don Owen, the Glenview Illinois Planning Director, about what communities can do after their military base is closed by the government.
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A retired Navy jet is on display outside the Naval Air Station Atlanta in Marietta, Ga., one of four Georgia military bases targeted for closure. (CBS/AP)
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An aerial view of Fort Monroe in Virginia, which will be closed if the commission's recommendations are accepted. (AP)
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Union Representative John Joyal, with American flag, leads workers at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine to a noontime rally. The shipyard was taken off the closure list. (AP)
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A state-by-state look at proposed base closings and those that would get bigger.
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On the first of at least two days of meetings, the base-closing panel agreed with proposals to shutter hundreds of small and large facilities in all corners of the country, including major bases such as Fort Monmouth in New Jersey, a naval air station in Georgia and an Army garrison in Michigan.
The Base Realignment and Closure Commission voted to shrink the Red River Army Depot in eastern Texas, where 2,500 civilian jobs would have been lost, rather than close it, reports CBS News Correspondent Dan Raviv. While the commissioners did vote to close Fort Monmouth, an amendment tells the Army to protect the research work there for the war on terrorism.
The recommendations will be sent to President Bush, who can accept them or reject them in their entirety. Congress also will have a chance to veto the plan but has not taken that step in four previous rounds of closures.
The commission signed off on most of the Pentagon's plans to close, shrink or expand hundreds of small and large Army and Navy facilities from coast to coast. It has yet to take up any Air Force proposals, including closing Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota and stripping aircraft from about two dozen Air National Guard facilities across the country.
The Pentagon proposed closing or consolidating a record 62 major military bases and 775 smaller installations to save $48.8 billion over 20 years, streamline the services and reposition the armed forces.
Since the Pentagon announced its proposal in May, commissioners had voiced concerns about several parts of it, including the estimate of how much money would be saved.
In some of its first decisions, the commission voted to keep open several major Army and Navy bases that military planners want to shut down, including the Portsmouth shipyard in Kittery, Maine, and the New London submarine base in Groton, Conn., two of the Navy's oldest bases.
"Yahoo!" exclaimed Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn. "Submarine base New London lives, and I think that it will live forever."
Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., who urged the commission to save the shipyard in Maine near the New Hampshire border, added: "This is a sweet victory."
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