More BRAC-MANG
Governor Schweitzer has suggested the possibility of a lawsuit to fight the MANG closure.
I think this is a bad way to impress the BRAC commission. We need to forget the grandstanding, and present a united front supporting MANG.
5/16/2005
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7 comments:
Just a little observation from the bleachers.
Lets put the puzzle together on the loss of the F-16s from the Montana Air National Guard: 1. Max spends day working (Press Op) on F-16s at Air National Guard base. 2. Brian shows up to meet the President in blue jeans at the Air National Guard Base. 3. President comes to Great Falls and Max tries to upstage his visit by holding Social Security listening sessions. Three strikes and U R Out. No wonder our planes are toast.
Do you really think President Bush is that petty?
Check out: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/0515bases15.html
Politics is a contact sport. The planes were probably safe until Max and Brian visited the Pentagon.
Also check out:
http://takeitontherun.blogspot.com/
The questions are; what missions do the F-16s at MANG perform? And are they vital to national security? IMO - MANG is gone. There is no strong argument to keeping it in Great Falls. Does anyone have a good number of how many jobs will be lost?
Why hasn't someone in Great Falls or Montana or the USAF been working on getting the runway fixed at Malmstrom AFB (Max?/Conrad?)? Sure seems to me that Schweitzer and Montana's congressional reps could of made a good argument to move MANG to Malmstrom AFB (instead of losing it)... if Malmstrom AFB had a runway that works.
And yes... I imagine Schweitzer and Baucus didn't help the cause.
I am pretty sure that President Bush had very little -- if anything at all -- to do with the selection of installations on the BRAC list. That is "below his radar" at this point -- he has bigger things to think about. This list is the BRAC teams' and Rumsfeld's.
Great Falls Fire Rescue is already busy drafting plans for taking over Firefighting at the Airport when the F 16's go and along with annexing Gore Hill. Get ready to pony up some big bucks for Crash-Fire Rescue vehicles and another 20 firefighters.
In regards to Mr. Rohich's response, the runway at Malmstrom does not need "fixed." The 1995 BRAC law closed it. Overturning a BRAC closure is not easy, but it can be done and maybe, just maybe it will and it would have to be Burns that does it with his position on Defense and Military committees. According to Burns' web site, he is not in favor of the BRAC process. With Baucus, it all depends on how close it is to election time. Check Max's voting record on National Security at:
http://www.nationalsecurity.org/
With Rehberg, he needs to take some pointers from Burns, and to check his sources....:)
Recent BRAC reports say Great Falls will lose around 124 jobs.
All the information may be found at: http://www.defenselink.mil/brac/
Hope this helps....
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