Steve Buyer: “I am disappointed to come to the well today to learn that President Bush is proposing to cease live combined arms…”

“I am disappointed to come to the well today to learn that President Bush is proposing to cease live combined arms training on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques by 2003. In short, the President and his administration are ignoring the issue of military readiness and national security. In opinion editorials, congressional testimony and official DOD press releases, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, General James Jones, and the former Chief of Naval Operation, Jay Johnson, repeatedly stressed to the Clinton administration the importance of combined arms training at Vieques. Their simple and continued message has been very clear: "Without Vieques, the Second Fleet cannot train, evaluate, or certify Battle Group/Amphibious Ready Group teams for combat operations." In fact, Admiral Johnson testified in a hearing in 1999 that "Vieques is not only the sole training facility on the East Coast that offers crucial combined live arms training, the range also serves as a model for the world because it offers the ability to conduct actual time synchronization of air, ground, surface, and subsurface components with live ordnance." Even former President Clinton's special panel on military operations on Vieques concluded that "the separation of certain aspects of current training into their component parts cannot replicate the ideal solution that has been available by the integration of all operational activities at Vieques."”