Military Bases

Process Used by Services for January 1990 Base Closure and Realignment Proposals Gao ID: NSIAD-91-109 January 7, 1991

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the Department of Defense's (DOD) January 1990 process for selecting military bases as candidates for closure and realignment, focusing on the Air Force's selection of Eaker Air Force Base, Arkansas, as an example.

GAO found that: (1) DOD did not provide written guidance to the services on how to select the candidate bases for closure and realignment; (2) none of the services conducted a comprehensive base analysis such as the one a 1988 commission used in selecting candidate bases; (3) the Army and the Air Force based their selections of candidate bases on internal assessments regarding anticipated force structure and budget reductions, the reduced threat in Eastern Europe, and DOD management review initiatives; (4) the Navy based its selection of candidate bases on suggestions made by the Office of the Secretary of the Navy; (5) the Air Force selected Eaker Air Force Base because it had a air-to-surface missile in its inventory that the Air Force planned to retire; (6) the Navy did not develop cost and savings estimates prior to the January 1990 announcement; and (7) the Army and the Air Force developed only preliminary cost and saving estimates, and recently enacted legislation suspended their efforts to refine those estimates.



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