At a House Armed Services Readiness Subcommittee hearing today on Capitol Hill, U.S. Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) issued the following statement on the BRAC decision on Ft. Monmouth:
“While it is probably true that many—perhaps most—of the BRAC recommendations years to date have refocused, synergetically enhanced and led to positive military outcome—ie: Joint Base New Jersey—the impending closure of Ft. Monmouth represents an egregious exception, that unnecessarily puts the warfighter at risk.
At a House Armed Services Readiness Subcommittee hearing today on Capitol Hill, U.S. Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) issued the following statement on the BRAC decision on Ft. Monmouth:
“While it is probably true that many—perhaps most—of the BRAC recommendations years to date have refocused, synergetically enhanced and led to positive military outcome—ie: Joint Base New Jersey—the impending closure of Ft. Monmouth represents an egregious exception, that unnecessarily puts the warfighter at risk.
“Because of a near certain loss of over 3,000 highly skilled, extremely talented men and women—70% of the Fort’s workforce will not move—it will be several years to replicate in Aberdeen what is currently a world class facility. We are at war, we don’t have years. Gaps put lives at risk.
“Secretary Grone testified that “military value was the primary consideration in making closure and realignment recommendations.”
“Victor Ferlise, recently retired after 36 years of C4ISR service—including the last 14 years as Deputy to the Commanding General—will tell the Committee that Ft. Monmouth ranked extremely high in military value, including first in development and acquisition in Information Systems Technology and first in Sensors, Electronic and Electronic Warfare and that only when the “non-mission related attributes are factored in “does its value drop.” I would ask Secretary Grone to explain this contradiction.
“Secretary Grone testified that “COBRA was not designed to, nor does it produce, budgetary quality estimates.” Chairman Ortiz used “tainted” and “flawed” to describe this process.
“Systematically underestimating costs—today GAO puts Ft. Monmouth closure costs at $680 million more than advertised—raises concerns that selected estimates were used to achieve a desired outcome.
“Turns out that even after COBRA’s funny numbers were corrected, like the response by Ft. Monmouth to BRAC data call question #811—on base operating support non pay objectives, the BRAC Commission apparently did not receive this information in a manner that might effect their final decision.
“For example, due to a misunderstanding of the original question, Mr. Ferlise says the garrison reported $93.4 million for installations operations. The correct number was actually $50 million.
“Similarly, on the big picture, the Fort estimated a total closing cost of $1.44 billion—almost exact to the current Army estimates.
“However, the DoD response apparently did not include the new certified corrected data and, in fact, validated the erroneous costs.
“The bottom line, Mr. Chairman, is that in an unprecedented the BRAC Commission itself seemed troubled enough to caveat this and only this decision with unprecedented conditionality by requiring a DoD report verifying that the move to Aberdeen will be accomplished without out a disruption of their support to the Global War on Terror, that redundant capabilities be put in place to mitigate potential degradation of such support and to ensure maximum retention of critical workforce. (We argue that that can’t be done).
“And finally, on jointness: it doesn’t appear that this issue was thoroughly addressed given Ft. Monmouth’s proximity to and cooperation with the Joint Base New Jersey.
“Thus Mr. Chairman, I respectfully request a follow up hearing, you did say this was the first—perhaps in January—to carefully review that report to sustain the business plan to ensure that each concern is thoroughly addressed. Too much is at stake—too many Americans and coalition soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines may be put in serious jeopardy if we don’t get this right." During an exchange between Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Installations and Environment Phil Grone, Rep. Pallone and Rep. Smith, Rep. Smith added,
“As past Chairman of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee I have written several laws and chaired dozens of hearings to improve veterans’ quality of life and we must do what is best for the warfighter. If there is something wrong, it must be corrected. Let’s get to the bottom of this process. It is not a “football game” between New Jersey and Maryland as previously stated by Congressman Cummings (D-MD). It is about the lives of our men and women in the field and the duty of the Pentagon to do the best to protect them.”