mr. chairman , let me say initially i do not believe in the brac . 
i have opposed every brac initially from the very beginning , and i have been here in congress 18 years . 
the reason i do not believe in brac was somewhat articulated by the previous speaker . 
i think it is a abrogation of congress ' responsibility . 
there is no reason why we can not make these decisions , and to give these decisions to an independent commission , i think , is just a cop-out on our part . 
so i want to start out with that . 
i also want to say in this particular round in 2005 , i strongly disapproved of the brac even more so than in the past because we are in a war in iraq . 
you do not shut down , in my opinion , military infrastructure at a time of war . 
i think this brac in particular is poorly timed and ill advised . 
now , the 2005 round of brac also was done hastily , in my opinion , with very little regard to the actual warfighter . 
a number of bases with great functional value are being shut down in the name of savings . 
i do not believe anyone at the department of defense or any member of the brac commission actually believes that this round of brac will actually save us any money , and i listened to many of the brac hearings . 
i am also truly disappointed because i believed that the brac ultimately would try to be an independent broker and that the commission would review each facility , analyze the data , and come to conclusions based on facts . 
i do not think that was the case . 
the opposite was the case . 
in the case of fort monmouth , which is the installation near my district , a lot of the people employed there live in my district . 
we successfully proved , myself , the two senators and several other congressmen , including the gentleman from new jersey ( mr. holt ) xz4001840 , we successfully proved to the brac commission , in my opinion , that the army substantially deviated from six of the eight brac criteria . 
the brac actually said that , that the pentagon deviated from six of the eight brac criteria . 
but , even so , even though the brac was supposedly an independent commission tasked with ensuring that the dod 's recommendations would not hurt the warfighter , even though they admitted there was a serious concern about the warfighter and how in the days of fort monmouth the communications and electronics functions crucial to iraq might be seriously hampered , they still decided to include it on the list . 
