Feith stopped yesterday at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies on his way to Guam and Japan to discuss the bilateral defense relationship with the Asian nation and look at U.S. military facilities there as part of the "global force posture" and realignment.

Feith, talking to reporters after addressing participants in the Asia-Pacific Center's Executive Course, which comprises future leaders from 37 nations, said Hawai'i may be considered for more troops in the far-reaching realignment expected to take place over the next decade.

"Everything is being considered," he said. "What we're doing in this global posture realignment is looking at our forces and our facilities and our relationships all over the world."

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told the Senate Armed Services Committee in late September that rearranging the global military posture is part of a larger effort to transform the military into a more agile and efficient force.

Rumsfeld said the United States still is situated as if little has changed in the past 50 years, and, for example, Germany is still bracing for a Soviet tank invasion. In South Korea, U.S. troops were virtually frozen in place since the Korean War ended in 1953, he said.

The global posture decision process and a 2005 round of U.S. military base closures "are tightly linked," Rumsfeld said. "Indeed, they depend on each other."

The Overseas Basing Commission will make its first fact-finding trip to Hawai'i, Guam and Asia this month, Stars & Stripes reported. Created by Congress, the commission is assessing the overseas basing structure.

Commission members are to meet with Adm. Thomas Fargo, commander of Camp Smith-based Pacific Command, and will visit Guam, Japan and South Korea, according to Stars & Stripes.

As the Pentagon looks to close bases in countries such as Germany, Hawai'i and Guam are poised for military buildups. The decision also was made to move 12,500 soldiers out of South Korea by 2008.

Fargo noted at the Senate hearing that fast-response Army Stryker brigades based around eight-wheeled armored troop carriers are being co-located with high-speed transport vessels and new C-17 cargo aircraft in Hawai'i and Alaska, and bombers and attack submarines are being based out of Guam.

Feith said no decision has been made on whether to base an aircraft carrier strike group in Hawai'i.

"I would say there's a general recognition that we have enormous and growing interests in Asia," Feith said, "so the whole region is increasingly important and Hawai'i is therefore increasingly important as our forward presence in the region."