Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 11, 1991 TAG: 9104110681
SECTION: NATL/INTL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Short
The armed forces will shrink from about 2.06 million active-duty members to about 1.99 million, according to Pentagon memorandums released Wednesday.
The four services, whose ranks swelled during the buildup to the Gulf War, will not cut as deeply as Congress had ordered last year before the war. Congress recently agreed to waive the earlier reduction plan and said Defense Secretary Dick Cheney could set smaller cuts in view of gulf deployments.
The 1991 force reductions for each service officially were approved Monday by Deputy Defense Secretary Donald Atwood.
Meanwhile, anxious lawmakers took advantage of Cheney's decision to delay recommending a list of U.S. military facilities that should be closed or scaled back to petition for their states.
A delay in Senate confirmation of three members of the base-closure commission held up the list.
Although speculation abounded about what installations have been selected, one Pentagon source, who requested anonymity, said Cheney had accepted the recommendations of the civilian secretaries of the military services "with very few modifications."
The official said the Air Force had placed about 15 bases on the list, the Army and Navy fewer than 10 each.
by CNB