United States Naval Fire Support Association
Wednesday, March 14, 2001

The tow, which began on March 8, was initiated by the previous administration to illegally fulfill a "pork barrel" request when Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., close to midnight slipped, unnoticed, $3 million into the fiscal year 2000 Defense Appropriations Bill, specifically for towing of the Iowa to San Fransisco. This money was never authorized, and to use it in FY 2001 (which began last October) is illegal, according to Title 10, U.S. Code 114.

Rep. Bob Stump, R-Ariz., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, strongly protested this unnecessary and costly move to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in a Feb. 23 letter and in person. Stump’s protest was improperly brushed aside with the excuse that preparations were too far advanced to stop. Of course, Rumsfeld can still divert the tow to the Norfolk Navy Base, which is well prepared to maintain it in accordance the law. This is best done before the Iowa reaches the Panama Canal on or about March 24. In addition to everything else, according to a knowledgeable Navy source, battleships are never towed at this time of the year because it is "too dangerous!" (Last month, retired DDG-22 USS Benjamin Stoddart was lost at sea while being towed.)

The battleships Iowa and Wisconsin are unique reserve mobilization assets protected by Public Law 104-106 that requires the Navy to preserve and maintain them ready to be returned to active service. The Iowa is going to the Maritime Administration (MARAD) Reserve Fleet facility at Suisun Bay, Calif., 35 miles from San Francisco. According to a Navy source familiar with MARAD, this facility has never cared for a mobilization asset like the Iowa and "does not have the ability to do so."

There is no usable pier for the ship, which is to be moored outboard of 14 other ships. Getting electrical cable to the ship to provide the 440-volt power needed to operate the nine dehumidification and cathodic systems essential to preserving the ship will needlessly cost MARAD a small fortune. The critical power shortage in California renders the essential source of power unreliable.

What is more significant is that San Francisco no longer has an active Navy yard, and thus no capability to effectively maintain the ship. The ships maintained by MARAD consist of the Ready Reserve Force (RRF), some militarily useful commercial ships, some still serviceable former Navy ships and ships typed as Category "X," which is one step from the scrap yard. The majority of these ships receive minimum maintenance support and have no protective systems installed. The MARAD Reserve Fleet at Suisan Bay and James River is, for the majority, the last port of call before being scrapped!

The USS Iowa is a maintenance category "B" ship, and therefore must be maintained in a state ready for reactivation. MARAD has no experience or capability for maintaining such a ship. Why is it being towed there? Moving the ship to MARAD, while most likely illegal as well as totally unnecessary, is a waste of money, not only for towing costs but also for having to make major modifications in MARAD’s electrical and other facilities to receive the Iowa.

In addition, it must be noted that nearly all the spare parts, and other necessary infrastructure needed for reactivation, are in the East, mostly near the coast. Should the Iowa be reactivated, which always remains a possibility, it should be towed back to the East Coast.

When Boxer got money in 1999 for moving the Iowa to San Francisco "as a tourist attraction," then Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jay Johnson opposed the move on the grounds that "there was no military value in doing it.” He was right, but he could have added that such donations are also against the law. Clinton’s secretary of the Navy, Richard Danzig, after Johnson retired, went ahead anyway and approved the move on Sept. 7 when few were paying any attention and minimum notice to Congress. Incredibly, after the Bush administration took office, the Navy, motivated by a deep-seated, but largely groundless, prejudice against battleships, was allowed to proceed with implementing the illegal Danzig decision.

Congressman Stump stressed to Secretary Rumsfeld that, in addition to the key legal question noted above, the move makes maintenance of the ship and its possible mobilization more expensive; moreover, the move is "not in the national or the military’s best interest.” He concluded by stating, "I am convinced that they [the two battleships] should be reactivated as soon as possible, since there is a well-recognized shortfall of naval surface fire support [NSFS].”

The fact remains that without active battleships our Marines and soldiers will, for at least 20 years, if then, have no life-saving essential effective tactical NSFS in the coastal-region conflicts we are most likely to encounter. And we saw in Kosovo how bad weather can wipe out air support. This deficiency could needlessly cost us countless casualties in future conflicts.

Stump is not alone in his assessment of the NSFS deficiency. Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Jones, in March 1, 2000 testimony on the Hill, stated: "We have been at considerable risk in naval surface fire support since the retirement of the Iowa-class battleships. This situation will continue until the DD-21-class destroyers join the fleet in strength," circa 2020.

In a June 2000 interview, Jones stated, "I regret that battleships were taken out of service. … As for their war-fighting capability, I regret that we took them out of service before we fixed the naval surface fire support problem.”

For at least the next 20 years, there are no other options, other than modernized battleships, that will remove this considerable risk. We are still a very long way from fixing this problem. So it is clear that, as to the Iowa, we are not dealing with some needless relic of the past.

As Stump declared and Jones has implied, we need to get battleships back into the active fleet soon; therefore the Iowa needs to be ready, not sidelined. Call President Bush now at (202) 456-1414; fax him at (202) 456 2461.

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