Hawai'i retains West Coast forces
By Susan Roth and Mike Gordon
Advertiser Staff Writers
WASHINGTON — Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld yesterday announced a realignment of the U.S. military, but no changes were made to the Pacific Command's operational control of forces based on the West Coast.
Rumsfeld unveiled a plan that creates a U.S. Northern Command with the mission of defending the United States and providing coordinated military assistance to civil authorities such as the FBI and local governments in the event of future attacks or natural disasters.
U.S. Sen. Dan Inouye recently raised concern about the plan, saying the Pacific Command based in Hawai'i could possibly lose operational control of some West Coast Navy and Marine forces.
"If this is ever translated in such a way that people in Asia would would get the idea that we are beginning to withdraw our forces and thereby show a lack of interest (in the region), then we are in deep trouble," Inouye, D-Hawai'i, said. "For every terrorist we stop inside our borders, a hundred will be trained in this region if we turn our backs on the people and governments who need our support," he said.
While no changes were made yesterday to the Pacific Command's operational control of forces based on the West Coast, their future is being examined by Pentagon officials, said Maj. Sean Gibson, a spokesman for the Pacific Command.
"At this point, no decision to reassign West Coast forces has been made," Gibson said. "The Department of Defense is beginning a review of the assignment of West Coast-based forces."
That review is expected to be finished by October, Gibson said.
With more than 308,000 military personnel, the Pacific Command now covers 43 countries and more than half the globe from the West Coast to Madagascar. It is the largest of nine unified commands.
Lt. Col. Stephen Barger, another Pacific Command spokesman, said the Northern Command's mission has been established, "and now you have to allocate the resources. That part is still under study."
Adm. Dennis Blair, commander in chief of the Pacific Command, was in Hong Kong yesterday and unavailable for comment.
Control over U.S. military responses to incidents in the Pacific is not likely to change when the realignment goes into effect Oct. 1, the Pentagon said.
The most substantive change for now is the addition of Russia and most of the former Soviet republics to the European Command, now that they are U.S. allies. And the entire continent of Antarctica will be added to the Pacific Command's area of responsibility, carving up the entire world into areas of U.S. military oversight.
Under the new structure, defense of the West Coast and Alaska will come under the new Northern Command, which will likely be based at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado.
But Pentagon officials said Alaskan forces would remain assigned to the U.S. Pacific Command, and the Pacific Command would oversee all responses to incidents in the Pacific Theater.
U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawai'i, yesterday said he was "pleased that the forces in Alaska remain in the Pacific Command."
"It is imperative that the U.S. military sustain its forward commitment to our allies and partners in the Pacific," he added.
Rumsfeld said the plan "streamlines the U.S. military structure to better address 21st century threats."
"If you think about it historically, in modern decades we have been looking out, we have been oriented to the outside world as the way to defend the United States of America," Rumsfeld said. "On Sept. 11, things happened inside the United States that were dramatic and involved the death of thousands of people. Immediately the phone call rings at the Pentagon, even though the Pentagon's job had been to look out — not to look at internal threats, but to look outside."
The military's response to local authorities needing help was not as unified or efficient as it could have been, Rumsfeld acknowledged.
"In this new organizational arrangement, we will have a four-star military person, who will be the Northern commander, who will be responsible for being ready to function in a supporting role and assist all of the other elements of the federal government, as well as the state and local governments, to see that those assets and those capabilities that are distinctive and unique to the Department of Defense are, in fact, promptly put into play to be of assistance to deal with that crisis in city X, if and when that occurs," he said.
Advertiser Military Writer William Cole contributed to this report.
