THE LEDGER-STAR
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, December 22, 1994 TAG: 9412220687
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A4 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Short : 33 lines
Next year's round of U.S. military base closings will be a ``painful process'' involving a significant number of installations, Defense Secretary William Perry predicts.
The Pentagon is to disclose its candidates for potential closure by the end of February. Some officials have said the next round recommended to the independent Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission could be as large as the previous three rounds together.
Asked by reporters Wednesday if that were the case, Perry told he thought ``it will be of a significant size.''
Perry said the 1995 round would be comparable to the 1993 round, in which 30 major bases and dozens of smaller facilities were shut down.
``We've already closed all of those that were relatively easy to close, so it's going to be a painful process, but it must be done,'' he said.
He said even more closures were necessary because military facilities have been cut less than 20 percent while troop strength has fallen more than 30 percent over the past several years. ``We . . . need to make that further reduction, or we will have a disproportionate amount of the defense budget going to overhead, rather than to the fighting forces,'' Perry said. by CNB