Erasing the bases

HEADNOTE

The hit list taking shape today may be the biggest ever.

Former Sen. Alan Dixon, D-Ill., wishes he had said no in 1994 when then-Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sam Nunn, D-Ga., called and asked

him to oversee the 1995 round of military base closings. Instead, Dixon agreed to take the job as a favor to his former colleague and led what turned out to be the military's most recent and largest round of shutdowns. "It's not a fun job. It's a bad job. I wouldn't do it again for anything," says Dixon, adding that one senator who he had considered a friend still won't talk to him because the commission closed a base in that lawmaker's state.

Somebody, though, will have to take the job again.

The Pentagon is gearing up for what is likely to be its final shot at realigning the military base structure set up to win the Cold War. Already, the Defense Department has been examining how work can be consolidated at bases that would be used by more than one of the military services. Over the next year the Army, Navy and Air Force will each draw up lists of bases that can be closed or realigned. By the spring of 2005, the Pentagon will hand off those lists to an independent commission that will hold hearings, crunch numbers and compose a final list that must be approved or rejected in its entirety by Congress and the president in the fall of 2005.