Military

Political game: Army wants to reduce acreage and close bases, but arguments based on outdated data

A decade ago, the Army was screaming for Colorado acreage, claiming new tactics and new training demands meant units needed Rhode Island-sized tracts of Las Animas County to hone their skills.

Now, relying on what experts call phony numbers, the Army has told Congress it has way too much land and is calling for base closures. The service also claims a massive overage in training land even as the arguments leaders used to justify their attempted expansion of Fort Carson's Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site show a shortfall of nearly 750,000 acres in the U.S.

"It's just foolish," said retired Army Command Sgt. Maj. Terrance McWilliams, who spent the later years of his career working to convince reluctant ranchers in southeastern Colorado that Piñon Canyon expansion was a good idea.

The new numbers are part of a Pentagon report released last month to the House and Senate armed services committees and obtained by The Gazette. Across the armed services, the report found that the Pentagon owns more than 20 percent more land than it needs. Cutting bases, the agency says, would help leaders deal with downsized defense budgets, which have been cut by about $100 billion from wartime highs a decade ago.