Friday, July 27, 2001
Dyess set to receive more B-1
funding
By Tara Copp
Reporter-News Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON — Dyess Air Force Base’s
B-1 bomber wing is being primed to absorb bomber personnel
from elsewhere, according to an Air Force
document to be released today.
Dyess’ B-1 maintenance crews will receive
funding to hire 115 new personnel and the base’s C-130 operation
would gain 47 new hires in budget year 2002, according to a letter
sent to lawmakers with Air Force bases in their districts.
Dyess will lose 10 military and four civilian
positions in its medical operation, the letter said.
Although the letter does not state how many
Dyess bombers would receive full funding for crews, flights and
maintenance, the increased personnel would seem to indicate that
more of its B-1s will be funded.
Dyess has 40 B-1s, but only 30 of the supersonic
bombers are fully funded.
Three others are partially funded. A Bush
administration plan to reduce the fleet is expected to leave Dyess
with 32 B-1s. Congress still must approve the proposal.
Abilene Industrial Foundation president
Bill Ehrie, a former Dyess commander who travels frequently to
Washington to promote the base’s interests, called the letter’s
content good news.
“It’s a positive indication that
they are adding manpower to the base,” Ehrie said. “But
the question that has to be answered here is still unknown: Is
this part of the B-1 realignment, if it goes forward, or is this
outside the scope of that alignment?”
The maneuvering is widely seen as evidence
of the Bush administration’s determination to downsize the
B-1 bomber fleet from 93 planes to 60, and consolidate them at
two bases instead of the five where they are now housed, industry
analysts said.
Written by Air Force Col. Michael Anderson,
the Air Force’s congressional liaison, the letter states
that the “actions are designed to position current and projected
Air Force assets in the most effective manner, both operationally
and fiscally.”
The B-1 is assigned to five Air Force bases:
Dyess, Ellsworth in South Dakota, McConnell in Kansas, Mountain
Home in Idaho, and Robins in Georgia. Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld has proposed placing the reduced fleet at Dyess and Ellsworth.
Ellsworth will also get a number of new
hires, the letter states. The budget allows its bomber wing 94
additional personnel for maintenance.
Neither Robins, Mountain Home nor McConnell
are slated to receive additional funding for B-1 personnel, the
letter says.
The Bush plan already faces opposition from
senators whose states stand to lose military personnel through
consolidation.
Last week, President Bush signed a 2001
supplemental bill that provided billions of dollars in funding
for a variety of government programs — and included a rider
from Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kansas, that no 2001 money would be used
to relocate B-1s.
The effect is that until at least Oct. 1,
the B-1s are staying put where they are currently housed.
Though some have wondered if the B-1’s
reduced presence foreshadows some doom for Dyess — especially
in light of expected base closures in 2003 and 2005 — military
experts say that isn’t the case.
“And everyone I’ve talked to on
the Hill and in the Air Force says Dyess is not going away,”
said Loren Thompson, a defense industry analyst with the Lexington
Institute, a conservative think tank in Arlington, Va.
He added that observers remain uncertain
of other changes before the Bush administration’s restructuring
of the military is complete, which is expected in the 2003 budget.
“So we’re sort of in midstream
here,’’ Thompson said, “and we’ll be a little
unclear how the process will play out until then.”
Contact Washington Bureau writer Tara
Copp at coppt@shns.com
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©2001, Abilene Reporter-News / Texnews / E.W. Scripps.
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