$1B intelligence center at Lajes Air Base, Azores could keep base open
Congress is investigating the U.S. military to evaluate charges that it manipulated studies to justify building an intelligence center in the United Kingdom.
Earlier this year, the Pentagon sent its European Infrastructure Consolidation plan to Congress, proposing to build the new base for about 1,000 intelligence analysts attached to European and Africa Command and to a related NATO intelligence center. The plan caught the attention of Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and other lawmakers who consider the Lajes Field strategically important and thought the intelligence center would be a good fit there.
The controversy was first reported last month by the Wall Street Journal, but House Republicans have been fighting to save Lajes since 2013. Back then six members of Congress, led by Nunes, urged then-Secretary Leon Panetta not to reduce the capabilities of Lajes Air Base, arguing that the base in the Atlantic Ocean was a unique strategic asset to counter rising terrorist threats in North Africa.
Nunes has taken an interest in Lajes since 2003, his freshman year in the House. He served as Congress's liaison to Portugal on the eve of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and he began visiting the air field the same year.
Defense Department initially had not considered Lajes as an alternative in the base studies for consolidating that intelligence work. "You have the nicest base that you have in all of the Department of Defense, with cheaper annual costs on the cost of living, the housing allowance, not to mention the size and scope of the base," he told me. "It was built to house 2,000 airmen. With Croughton you would have to build or rent this housing out."
More recently, the Pentagon has shared its own estimates with Congress and the media that say putting the intelligence base at Lajes would cost $1 billion more over time than the Croughton proposal would.
Nunes said that that estimate is "laughable," and that his proposal to put the intelligence center at Lajes would end up saving hundreds of millions of dollars, by avoiding new construction at Croughton and by avoiding the cost of winding down the air field at Lajes.
The Pentagon nonetheless says Lajes Field is not a viable option. "The bottom line here is that this is a decision about operational needs and responsible use of taxpayer dollars," Pentagon spokesman Mark Wright told me. "Our previous personnel numbers at Lajes exceeded our operational requirements. With the increase in range of modern aircraft, the frequency and volume of flights requiring the capabilities provided by Lajes Field have changed. Lajes has supported only an average of two U.S. military aircraft arrivals each day in the last couple of years."
Other senior military officers have made this case directly to Congress in recent weeks. In May, the two generals in charge of European and Africa Command, David Rodriguez and Philip Breedlove, wrote a classified letter to Nunes and the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, urging them to support the proposed plan to build the intelligence center at Croughton.
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