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U.S. to leave Cheyenne even
as Russia flexes muscle
Kristin Roberts
Reuters
Thursday Aug 23, 2007
The U.S. military will move its secure command center from
deep inside Cheyenne Mountain even as Russia revives military
maneuvers that led America to burrow under the rock almost 50
years ago.
Construction on a new command center 12 miles away at Peterson
Air Force Base is well under way despite security concerns that
have driven some lawmakers to consider halting funding for the
transition.
The move will shift more than 100 people responsible for detecting
attacks on North America from a facility that sits under 2,000
feet of granite to a basement in an office building on the base
that officials concede offers lower protection.
Air Force Gen. Gene Renuart, the U.S. commander responsible for
homeland defense and protecting North American air space, says
the switch is worth the risk of leaving a facility built to withstand
the indirect effects of a multi-megaton nuclear blast.
(Article continues below)
It will combine operations now divided between Cheyenne and Peterson,
helping the commander to receive information and respond to crises
or attacks more quickly, Renuart said. It will not, however, save
money as the military promised, congressional investigators have
shown.
Renuart said the plan was the best way to make the most of resources
currently split between the two Colorado locations.
"We can't accommodate all of that integrated command and
control capability in the mountain," he said. "And so
it makes sense to have that put in place where we can get the
best unity of all of that effort, and that really is down here
at Peterson."
He said using communications technologies to link the two centers
was no substitute for having everyone in one place.
RUSSIAN MANEUVERS
But those arguments, offered repeatedly by defense officials
for more than a year, come against a backdrop of tension between
Washington and Moscow and Russia's decision to resume long-range
bomber missions common during the Cold War.
Russia, angered by U.S. plans to place missile defense assets
in Eastern Europe, said the flights were resumed on a permanent
basis due to security threats. In recent weeks, those flights
have come near Alaska and Guam, a U.S. territory.
Those actions, coupled with China's increasing military capabilities
and concerns about the intentions of North Korea and Iran, have
led some officials at Cheyenne to oppose the move out of the mountain.
Speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of harm to their
careers, they say the new command center at Peterson cannot be
protected from nuclear, chemical or biological attack and its
systems will not be sufficiently hardened against an electromagnetic
pulse from a nuclear blast overhead.
A former senior defense official who led Pentagon efforts to
close unneeded military bases said Cheyenne is one of just three
facilities the United States should never close.
"Given the uncertainty of the future threat and the value
of protected operation sites, that move seems to be excessively
risky," said David Berteau, now a consultant with Washington
firm Clark & Weinstock.
Renuart characterized both Russia and China as partners and said
Iran and North Korea were not yet capable of a precise strike
in the middle of North America.
"You don't necessarily want to live in the mountain just
because it's possible that that country may develop (capability),"
he said of Pyongyang and Tehran.
But Col. Andre Dupuis, a Canadian officer at the North American
Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), the Cheyenne-based U.S.-Canadian
operation commanded by Renuart, bristled at a suggestion that
North America does not face the threat Cheyenne was built to defend
against. He said Russia may not intend to harm the United States
but certainly has the capability.
"Threat is capability and intent," Dupuis said. "They
(the Russians) have a very useful, capable, powerful armed forces
and they would be silly not to use them in whatever ways that
are in their best national interests."
"They have capability. I don't believe they have intent,"
he said. "But it doesn't mean we ignore them then because
there could be a threat."
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