Incident in Puerto Rico shouldn't be politicized

08/27/99

Politicians in Puerto Rico who want the U.S. Navy to abandon the training range on the island of Vieques are ill serving the national interest. The training of U.S. Navy and Marine Corps pilots there for over 50 years has played a key role in their outstanding performance in every conflict from World War II to Kosovo. Giving up such a site because of politics would be shortsighted and dangerous.

The controversy escalated to a new level on April 19 when a Marine jet flying over the Vieques range accidentally dropped a bomb 1.5 miles off target and killed a civilian Navy employee. To its credit, the Navy duly concluded that human error by the Marine pilot and a range control officer was to blame.

But that admission was unsatisfactory for those bent on getting the Navy out of Vieques. The critics ignored that the training site is the only one on the east side of the United States where live-fire exercises can be conducted by combined aviation, surface and subsurface units. In seeking to generate as much anti-Navy sentiment as possible, the Navy's opponents proceeded to embellish the situation to an unrecognizable degree.

The most serious distortions include charges that the live-fire training exercises occur near a populated area, that the land in question was "stolen" by the Navy, and that the Navy does not conduct similar live-fire exercises on the continental United States. But here are the facts:

The live-fire range on Vieques is nearly 10 miles from the nearest populated area.

Far from stealing or "taking" the island, the Navy purchased 25,000 acres on Vieques between 1941 and 1943 at market value.

The Navy conducts live-fire exercises on the continental United States, where civilian population areas are closer to the live-fire ranges than is the case on Vieques island.

Navy personnel committed a terrible mistake at Vieques. But as serious as the accident was, it would be inexcusable to use that failure as a pretext for dislodging the Navy from one of its most important training areas. Navy pilots who need the best possible training before risking their lives in combat deserve better - as does the national security of the United States.