Byron Dorgan: “This amendment is not an amendment that would obliterate or abolish next year's BRAC Commission. It does not do that. It…”

“This amendment is not an amendment that would obliterate or abolish next year's BRAC Commission. It does not do that. It does say next year's BRAC Commission should make judgments and recommendations to the Congress on the overseas base structure. It makes good sense that we would understand and try to think through what our basing structure should be internationally before we decide what our needs are here at home. If, for example, at some point we do not have 100,000 troops in Germany and we bring home 50,000 of those troops to this country--incidentally, we ought to consider that because it is very expensive to keep 100,000 troops in Germany--if we did that, where would we put 50,000 troops? At which base? What set of bases? So we propose something that would make good sense, make judgments in next year's BRAC Commission about the overseas bases, where we should retain overseas bases. Since we authorized the BRAC round, we have had the continuing war on terrorism, a war in Afghanistan, and a war in Iraq. We have had a series of things that have altered in many ways what our responsibilities are around the world. The cold war is over. We have new challenges and new responsibilities.”