I realize with Arnold banging his housekeeper, its hard to focus on anything else ( don’t people use condoms anymore?). But one United States Senator has his eye on the ball:
U.S. Senators Carl Levin (D-Mich.), John McCain (R-Ariz.), and Jim Webb (D-Va.) have issued a statement declaring that the 2006 U.S.-Japan realignment agreement is “unrealistic, unworkable, and unaffordable.” That includes the controversial relocation of Okinawa’s U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma.
Can we have an amen? Webb is right and the GWB and his adminstration was wrong when it misread Japanese intentions in agreeing to the Japanese Base Re-aligment in 2005. The dumbest part of that agreement-the relocation of CVW-5 from Atsugi to Iwakuni, meets all of Webb’s criteria above. Regular readers of this blog know I have been screaming about how stupid that is-since 2006.
As for the focal point Futenma-Webb’s got that one right too:
Moving the Marines off Okinawa was the linchpin of a 2006 U.S.-Japan agreement to lessen the impact of the U.S. military presence on Okinawa, where U.S. bases take up approximately 20 percent of the island’s land. The pact also included the plan to shutter Futenma and build a runway at Camp Schwab, in Okinawa’s less populated north, which Webb derided Wednesday as unfeasible.
“This would be a massive, multi-billion dollar undertaking, requiring extensive landfill, destruction and relocation of many existing facilities, and in a best-case scenario, several years of effort – some estimate that the process could take as long as ten years,” Webb wrote on his official website.The senators instead called for the military to relocate Futenma’s current Marine air operations to the nearby Kadena Air Base, which is owned by the Air Force.
Webb states the obvious-Kadena is huge, the amount of real estate it owns is obscene-and from a standpoint of available ramp space alone, could accomodate the Marine Corps aircraft at Futenma. Furthermore-if anyone is poised to move, its the Air Force, given the fact that it has four other bases in the region that it could relocate forces to. ( Korea, Guam, Yokota and Misawa). Even if it did not move anything it would have room for the Marines-but not their families. However, I’ll bet housing could be worked out.
Furthermore-given the fact that the shift of operational control in Korea keeps moving to the right ( Korea is the reason are there in the first place), it begs the question of whether there are better ways to reduce US footprint in Japan.
The Navy will be less effective because of this move and it will impose a lot more hardship on CVW-5 families. Webb is right to take up this banner-but he needs to say it even louder-especially to the folks who were instrumental in advocating this move-one of whom lives at Camp Smith and one in Fort Meyer. ( PACOM and CJCS).
It was stupid back then-its even more stupid now.