Hill logistics center likely to avoid ax

WASHINGTON — Gen. Gregory Martin — chief of the Air Force's logistics, weapons testing, research and repair facilities — predicted Wednesday that the new round of base closings won't be as far-reaching as first anticipated.

"My gut tells me that it will be . . . less turbulent than many people were worried about when this whole process started," said Martin, who heads the Air Force Materiel Command, a sprawling organization based at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. The command employs 85,000 civilian and military workers at bases and installations across the country.

Martin's comments come after Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld recently scaled back his previous declaration that as much as 25 percent of domestic military bases could be closed or trimmed in the new round of base closings.

One of the major facilities that fall under Martin's aegis is the Ogden Air Logistics Center at Hill Air Force Base. Others are the Air Force Research Laboratory and Aeronautical Systems Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio; the Electronic Systems Center at Hanscom AFB, Mass.; and the Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards AFB, Calif.

The return of thousands of U.S. troops from abroad — and the need to house them — has caused the Pentagon to revise its estimate of extraneous domestic military facilities, Rumsfeld said last month.

The fifth round of base closings in 17 years is under way, with the Pentagon facing a May 16 deadline for publishing its target list of bases to close or trim.

Then, over the succeeding 3 1/2 months, an independent nine-member commission will review those recommendations and publish the final base closing hit list by Sept. 8. The list will then be reviewed by President Bush and by Congress. The entire process should be done by November.

Past commissions have approved some 80 percent to 85 percent of the Pentagon's recommendations.

The individual armed forces have been providing Rumsfeld's office with reams of data justifying their military facilities.

Martin said there was not much fat to cut in the Air Force Materiel Command. "A lot of the work has already been done in previous BRACs," he told reporters, using the acronym for base realignment and closure commission.