Jim Bunning: “we are embarking on a new war like nobody has ever seen before. We are not experts in knowing what the landscape of the…”

“we are embarking on a new war like nobody has ever seen before. We are not experts in knowing what the landscape of the 21st century warfare will look like. None of us knows for certain that we need to downsize our military infrastructure under these extraordinary circumstances. I have heard it said here today, and before, that DOD has a certain amount of savings. I show you two reports. One is from the GAO on military base closings. In the report, it says: The estimates are imprecise and should be reviewed as rough approximations and not likely savings. These prospects apply as well to the Department's updated net savings estimates. So even the GAO and the CBO say the savings are not really savings because they didn't consider everything. They can't even back up their own numbers. If you agree with DOD on savings--and they also say the cost upfront actually is more, which was brought out by Senator Stevens. BRAC has been a political football. Anybody who has been involved in it knows it has been a political football. First it was the commission; then it was the administration. So it cannot be done objectively. I know our good chairman and the ranking member have tried to do that in this BRAC round. But I am not sure it won't become a political football again. So that is BRAC as usual, and I am not for BRAC as usual. The new home security cabinet, as Senator Lott has said, may decide they need these bases to make our homeland secure.”