Excerpt from 2005 Base Realignment and Closure Process: Hearing Before the Readiness Subcommittee of the Committee on Armed Services, House of Representatives, One Hundred Eighth Congress, Second Session; Hearing Held March 25, 2004 Over the past 4 months, dod has met several statutory require ments in advance of the 2005 brac round. On February 12th, the Department published the final selection criteria that will be used to make brac decisions. Several Members have already expressed concern that the final criteria were identical to the draft criteria published in December of 2003, leading them to believe that the hundreds of public comments and concerns about the draft criteria were ignored by the Department. I would like to ask our witnesses to address this perception and to explain why the Department decided not to make any changes in the draft criteria. In addition, dod published several documents required by brac law earlier this week, including a detailed Force Structure Plan that is based upon the assessment of probable threats over the next 20 years, a description Of the infrastructure necessary to support the Force Structure Plan, and certification based upon the Force Structure Plan and infrastructure requirements that a round of brac is in fact necessary. While the brac selection criteria might be considered the boundaries of the base closure process, the documents received this week are at the center of dod's justifications for another brac round. AS such, I think it is safe to say, the Members of this sub committee are very interested in the Department's recent sabmis sion. Throughout the coming year, the Members of the committee will be asked by their constituents: IS a round of base closure in 2005 justified? Is it necessary? And is it timely? About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.