Missouri’s member of the Senate Armed Services Committee says the Pentagon has abandoned discussions that were making some Missouri military officials and the communities near their bases a little nervous.
Senator McCaskill says defense secretary Leon Panetta has dropped any thoughts of a new commission on base realignment and closure. McCaskill, says the military readiness subcommittee she heads would not allow any recommended changes to come out of her subcommittee until the Pentagon comes up with a plan for the thousand-plus bases this country maintains overseas.
She says the Pentagon has not even properly assessed whether the most recent round of closings and realignments based on a 2005 study saved any money.
McCaskill says the Pentagon needs to make sure our foreign bases, especially those cold war bases in Europe, are still worth their cost.
She says Missouri’s major bases are in good enough shape to resist BRAC changes. But she says some smaller installations such as Rosecrans Field in St. Joseph and Jefferson Barracks in St. Louis could have been affected.