Bombing Range at Vieques, Puerto Rico

[82Rigger]

One of the many headaches that George W. Bush inherited from his predecessor
was the Puerto Rican island of Vieques. In the waning years of the Clinton
administration, protesters demanded that the U.S. Navy abandon bombing and
naval gun fire exercises that had taken place on the largely uninhabited
island for nearly seventy years.

It became a leftist cause. Liberal icons bumped into one another to fly to
Puerto Rico, boat over to the island, trespass (but never on a day that
there was an exercise scheduled) and get arrested for the benefit of the New
York Times or Newsweek. They included the Reverend Al Sharpton, Mrs. Jesse
Jackson, Joan Baez, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Edward Olomos, Michael Moore and
Ramsey Clark, just to name a few.

Hillary Clinton, then running for the U.S. Senate in New York, chastised the
U.S. Navy for not bowing to the "will of the citizens of Puerto Rico", until
her husband, a week before the election, issued an executive order to phase
out the facility by 2003, despite recommendations to the contrary by his own
Secretary of Defense and the Chief of Naval Operations.

In 2002, the bombing exercises were transferred to an Air Force bombing
range in Florida, not far from the Jacksonville and Pensacola Naval
Air Stations. In January, many of the protesters were back in Puerto Rico,
celebrating the final bombing exercise on Vieques and waved Puerto Rican
flags and placards that read "U.S. Navy, get out of Puerto Rico."

On February 21, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld announced that the U.S.
Navy will close the Roosevelt Roads Naval Air Station in Puerto Rico in
2004, eliminating 1200 civilian jobs as well as 700 military positions. This
naval facility is estimated to put nearly $300 million annually into the
local economy.

The next day a stunned Governor Sila Calderon, held a news conference in San
Juan, protesting the base closure as a serious blow to Commonwealth's
fragile economy. The governor stated that "The people of Puerto Rico don't
now or never did have an interest in closing the Vieques bombing range or
the Roosevelt Roads naval base. My government is interested in both staying
in Puerto Rico."

When asked, Admiral Robert J. Natter, Commander-in-Chief, Western Atlantic
Command, said, "Without Vieques, I see no further need for the facility at
Roosevelt Roads. None."

So... Yanqui go home?

Fine.

But we'll take our dollars with us.

Hasta la vista, baby!