Virginia lawmakers on Tuesday pushed the Defense Department for a full analysis justifying its plan to shutter the Joint Forces Command in Norfolk, but an agency official told them the military concluded the base no longer justified a billion-dollar budget.
Gov. Bob McDonnell and members of Virginia’s congressional delegation met Tuesday morning with Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn III and James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to criticize the secretive nature of the Defense Department’s decision.
The briefing was not particularly illuminating, McDonnell said, and, while he got a commitment for a meeting with Defense Secretary Robert Gates, the Defense Department leaders did not agree to public hearings on the matter.
Later in the day, Sen. Jim Webb criticized the department during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, saying he received a phone call from Lynn just 15 minutes before the Aug. 9 announcement.
“That’s not the way to conduct a review that has enormous implications to our defense and also to community interests,” the Democrat said. “I believe, in another sport, it’s called stiff-arming.”
Lynn said Gates made the decision after about 30 meetings with senior military officials, concluding that the base no longer justified its billion-dollar budget.
JFCOM, based in Norfolk and Suffolk in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia, employs about 6,000 workers, including 3,000 contractors.
Gates’ proposals, intended to shave $100 billion off the Pentagon budget, also include cutting defense contracts by 30 percent over three years — potentially huge for Northern Virginia, home to General Dynamics, SAIC and, soon, Northrop Grumman.
“This was not a business case analysis, as some have described it,” Lynn said. “This was a military decision.”
On a conference call with reporters following the hearing, Republican Rep. Randy Forbes
raised the possibility of requesting subpoenas if the department doesn’t provide Virginia lawmakers with the information they have requested.
