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RICHMOND
U.S. Sen. Jim Webb says he will oppose any spending for the possible shift of a Norfolk-based aircraft carrier to Florida.
The Virginia Democrat and former Navy secretary issued a statement on Thursday criticizing a defense planning document that proposes the move of one of five aircraft carriers from Norfolk Naval Station to Mayport Naval Station.
Webb said the report — called the Quadrennial Defense Review — contains "clear contradictions" in proposing what he calls unnecessary spending of $1 billion to prepare Mayport for the carrier.
He said the proposal comes at a time when Navy is attempting to expand the fleet.
Webb stressed that the defense report is simply a planning document.
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Pearl Harbor a phony issue
All this "another Pearl Harbor" is just fear mongering by Florida supporters to get the money that goes with the carriers. If the Navy was truly concerned about having all its assets in one place they would split up the, Oceana jets, the ships at Little Creek as well as splitting up the carriers. Until they make Mayport take some jets if they want a carrier, this is just a money grab, or to putit another way, PORK demanded by the republican politicians in Florida.
Not necessarily true.
Although it is a sound National secruity measure to not have all of our "nuclear" eggs in one basket I once thought this was just a way to stimulate the Jacksonville area. The idea of losing thousands of jobs had me thinking the same way you do but then I realized all or most of those jobs will still be here in Hampton Roads when the Carrier has to come in for scheduled upgrades/repairs/refueling etc. etc. Northrop Gruman Newport News is the only East coast shipyard with nuclear carrier capability. So all that money and those jobs they threaten will leave with the carrier won't really be a major impact on the community and actually alleviate some of the problems (traffic for one...). Just my take on this.
Republican politicians from Florida????
So a Democrat administration and a Democrat congress is paying off Republican politicians? I doubt it....
Idiots
To those that want to bring up the thought of another 'Pearl Harbor' to try and scare folks is pure stupidity. What happened nearly 70 years ago can't happen again with the way aircraft, satellites and subs are today.
In 1941, carriers were the ultimate answer. Not true today. Keep them in our area where all the support infrastructure is in place.
Sure the Japanese won't be attacking Norfolk
But if I was a terrorist with a nuclear weapon, how about sneaking it into a container and detonating it right off the carrier piers when all or most are in port? That way you blow away not just the carriers but a whole lot of Navy, plus get the only yard that can build new aircraft carriers.
Yeah, let's just replay the
Yeah, let's just replay the scenario, keep em all together and hope for different results. That'll teach 'em!
Oh, by the way, the above
Oh, by the way, the above comment is blatant sarcasm. Someone's gonna take it seriously I'm sure.
Yes,
with today's technology the way Pearl Harbor was attacked would indeed be very difficult to pull off. But today there are different senarios to contend with. Bring a freighter in with a large enough device hidden on board, and it gets set off as it heads up the river past the naval base. Look at Tom Clancy's books and you will find an example of such an incident for the DC area where a device was smuggled in a fake snack machine and set off at a football game. I believe that book is SUM OF ALL FEARS.
What a joke!
"..... Webb says he will oppose any spending for the possible shift ..."
Obviously, he's not opposed for the sake of saving us taxpayers money re: his loyal support to just about any spending program BHO & the rest of the anti-Constitution crowd has pushed.
Brave & capable as Webb was as a young Marine squad leader, & a pretty decent author in later life, he's been a total failure as a Senator: just another marionette in the Harry & Nancy Show.
This is merely a naked move to curry favor with those voters who won't put national security above personal financial interests; in a desperate effort to try & salvage a short & disappointing senatorial stint headed to the bilges.
As secnav, Mr. Webb is cognizant of the problems associated
with Oceana. He should know that Oceana no longer meets the needs of our carrier pilots. He should also know that even with building this OLF, our pilots will not have the facilities to PROPERLY perform their training mission, if the Navy is to be believed with their darkness and capacity criteria. Will he require a rural VA site to take this OLF and be the only runway that can properly perform FCLP missions for our pilots? Will he allocate the funds to build this OLF, but to also condemn the people around Oceana for our pilots? I'm guessing he will go for the jobs, and the votes, and only support condemning a rural site. Will he allow VB LG to continue to not support the mission? Is he accepting this hogwash of "lack of capacity" the Navy is saying for what reason? Will he do all this just for jobs, and votes. The right choice is to force the Navy to start the JSF NEPA process and find out exactly what our pilots need, then allocate the monies for that. Sen Webb, while $300m is now a rounding error in DC, it represents people being thrown off their lands for what appears to be jobs, votes, and Navy $$ for Hampton Roads. Is that proper?