Lawmakers ask Pentagon to defend Vieques closing

Many of the beaches of Vieques are littered with the relics of mock battles.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- House Armed Services Committee members questioned the top brass Wednesday about the U.S. Navy's decision to abandon the bombing range on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques in two years.

Lawmakers also voiced anger they were not consulted before Secretary of the Navy Gordon England announced the pullout two weeks ago. The announcement also raises the question of whether a scheduled November referendum on the issue for island residents is now necessary.

"If the Department of Defense wants the committee's support in canceling the referendum and leaving the island," said the committee chairman, Bob Stump, R-Arizona, "then it must first prove that the closure of Vieques will not damage military readiness and that a viable alternative is in fact available."

England and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz took much of the heat during the three-hour hearing.

The Navy had said many times Vieques is critical to maintaining combat readiness because it is the only place in the Atlantic region that allows for air, sea and land forces to train in concert.

That made the Navy's decision to abandon Vieques even more perplexing to some members of Congress. They suspect it was a political decision, rooted in the administration's interest in currying favor with Hispanic voters.

But England told the committee there was little hope the Navy could win the favor of Vieques Islanders in the referendum.

"We will still continue to have protests, unrest," England said. "This is not a recent issue. This is an issue that goes back, literally now, a generation. It's deep rooted.

"Frankly, it's not in our interests, in my judgment, to try to remain in a place where the people do not want you to remain and cause disruption during our training exercises," England said.

Many in Congress believe the referendum, pushed last year by the Clinton Administration as part of the Pentagon's budget bill, was a major error.

Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pennsylvania, a hawk who chairs a subcommittee on military readiness, called the referendum "the stupidest thing I think that I've ever been a part of on this committee."

"This is setting a precedent that is going to come back and bite us in the rear end time and time again," Weldon said, asking if other communities should have the right to reject training sites. "We have 33 major training facilities in the states. We've got eight to 10 major training facilities around the world."

Weldon said if a referendum is held in Puerto Rico, it should allow island residents only to vote on the entire Navy presence there, which would has a major economic implications.

Others on the Armed Services Committee said the opposition to the military's presence on Vieques is being driven by commercial interests.

"This is being driven by well-heeled interests," said Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Mississippi.

"Every one of those little camps on the island didn't just occur," Taylor said, "Somebody had to buy those building materials. Someone had to bring them food. Someone had to bring them generators. Somebody had to bring them gasoline.

"These weren't poor folks doing this. Somebody's footing the bill, and it's developers who want to get their hands on 16 miles of beachfront property," he said.