Virginia Republican Sen. John Warner, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, in a letter to BRAC commission chairman Anthony Principi, blasted the commission on its decision to consider bringing back to life Cecil Field in Florida, as a replacement for Virginia’s NAS Oceana, which the Pentagon has proposed to close. Warner said such a move would be illegal. The Navy closed Cecil in 1999, sending most of its aircraft to Oceana.
The Air Force wants to pump more than $12 billion over the next five years into its new affordable long-range missiles program and recently asked industry to push the flights of some of those munitions beyond 1,200 miles.