The Last Stand for El Toro Base : * It’s Now or Never for the Case Against Closing a Base

Pity the Orange County public trying to make sense of the national security vs. peace dividend vs. local economic impact debate swirling around the planned closure of the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station. Will the real facts concerning the military mission ever be known?

The data related to defense readiness and military efficiency that would make the El Toro decision indisputable appears very difficult to nail down. Consider the roller-coaster history in recent years of the conventional wisdom du jour about El Toro’s strategic importance.

Chapter One: For years, there was never any question about whether the base would be there in future years. That’s because it always was a given that it would be. In discussions with local officials, planners and developers, the base was described by military officials as central to carrying out the Marines’ global mission. Closing El Toro was an idea whose time would never come.

Chapter Two: Closing El Toro--an idea whose time has come. In the deficit-reduction, post-Cold War America of President Clinton, local Marine leaders seemed to change their tune overnight. In 1993, suddenly they were saying they could carry out their mission just as well by moving the 3rd Air Wing to Miramar Naval Air Station in San Diego. They would save money through consolidation, rather than cutting into the bone of military readiness.

Here too was the justification for the local congressional delegation to adopt a wait-and-see attitude. Why fight Washington, when you’re a conservative Republican and the guys in the Pentagon get their marching orders from a Democratic administration? It was left to local politicians to wail about economic impact.

Meanwhile, in a touch of irony, Northern California politicians who had made political capital by arguing for a peace dividend were complaining loudly about their state’s unfair burden in base closings. But in Republican Orange County, even longtime base supporters, some of them former military men, seemed to be grasping for arguments against closing.

And now, Chapter Three: Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach), who hung back in the early going, weighed in on the Op-Ed page of The Times Orange County Edition saying, in effect, forget the local economic devastation argument but consider the possibility that there still may be a military argument to be made.

He argues that economic data he has obtained from the Marines shows that it will cost a whopping $1 billion to pay for relocating the Tustin air station and El Toro operations to Miramar, and he awaited information to support that supposed $1.3 billion in avoided costs that would be realized by the moves.

About one thing there can be no doubt while the facts get sorted out. The true battlefield lies with the deliberations of the Base Closure Commission. That is the place where all the arguments must play out.

In the meantime, the California bashers will go on clucking that this state, which has enjoyed so much prosperity in years past from having a military-industrial economy as its driving engine, finally has gotten its fair share of recessionary pain.

All the more reason to fight to save El Toro, if only the right case is there to be made against closing the base. It’s not clear whether that argument is discernible through the misty military facts. But now that the initial shock of the news is over, the battle moves to the commission. Orange County had better marshal its best case or forever hold its fire.