Tinian eyed for military training

Haidee Eugenio



 
While the United States and Japan are still working on the funding and details of the long-planned relocation of some 8000 US Marines from Okinawa, Japan, to Guam, the neighbojuring Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) may also play a bigger role than merely a training ground for only a few hundreds of troops at a time.
  CNMI, also a US territory just like Guam, leased the northern two-thirds of its Tinian island to the US Department of Defense.
  Because Guam cannot accommodate all training for the relocating Marines starting in 2014, the military looks at Tinian to provide opportunities for training groups of 200 Marines or larger due to greater land availability. 
  Company and battalion level non-live fire training areas already exist and are used on these leased parcels of lands but they could be developed to accommodate live fire ranges for rifle known distance, automated combat pistol, platoon battle course, and field firing, as well as airspace use.
  But as Tinian Chamber of Commerce president Phillip Mendiola-Long told the US Navy on its comment on the buildup’s draft environmental impact statement, the military buildup as currently planned does not seem to economically benefit Tinian in a major way. 
  For example, the US military said to enhance economic benefits and compensate for economic costs for local businesses, the Marine Corps would consider granting trainees some liberty at the end of every training mission so that they might spend money in the local establishments and interact with local residents. 
  The business group, however, made it clear that it supports any such buildup on the island. It said Tinian has endured over 30 years of pent up expectations for the military’s use and development of the 18,000 acres of leased land on the island.
  Talks about CNMI’s possible bigger role in the realignment of US troops in the Asia-Pacific region started when three Japanese lawmakers briefly stopped over in Saipan on their way to Guam on Feb. 10.
  Japanese Diet members Mikio Shimoji, Tomoko Abe, and Ryoichi Hattori told CNMI Governor Benigno R. Fitial, Lt. Gov. Eloy S. Inos, Senate President Paul A. Manglona and House Speaker Froilan C. Tenorio and government officials that Tinian may be considered as a relocation site for 2,000 to 4,000 US troops from the Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in Okinawa, Japan. 
  This is in addition to the over 8,000 Marines to be relocated to Guam, which said it cannot accommodate more than this number.  The massive buildup is expected to cost $15 to $20 billion, to be shouldered by Japan and the US.
  Guam Governor Felix P. Camacho also asked the US military to delay the military buildup until after 2014 to better prepare Guam.
  The buildup will rapidly increase Guam’s population, resulting in 20 years worth of growth in just five years.
  Guam Sen. Judith Guthertz, who chairs the Committee on the Guam Military Buildup and Homeland Security, also told the US military to consider relocating the First Marine Aircraft Wing aviation command from Futenma to Tinian. This is part of Guthertz’s “stretch out and spread out” recommendation which also includes spreading the buildup over eight years instead of only two years from 2014 and reducing the size of the troop movement by half or to only 4,000.
  The CNMI governor and the CNMI Military Integration Management Committee said the islands are open to the idea of relocating thousands of troops from Futenma to Tinian but “only if such plan is supported and approved by the U.S. federal government and the Department of Defense.”
  The governor and Tinian Mayor Ramon M. Dela Cruz said such relocation will invite economic benefits in terms of jobs and land lease, among other things.
  But Japan’s Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa downplayed on Feb. 12 the idea of relocating US troops from the Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in Okinawa to Tinian.
  “As Prime Minister (Yukio Hatoyama) strongly intends to solve the (relocation) issue by May, it is really difficult,” Kitazawa told a Feb. 12 press conference on the possibility of considering Tinian as a candidate site for the relocation of the US Marine Corps’ Futenma Air Station.
  Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirofumi Hirano, who leads a government taskforce on the matter, also expressed little enthusiasm for the idea of relocating Futenma to Tinian. He said the taskforce has never discussed it before. Japan hopes to reach a final conclusion by the end of May on where it wants to see the Futenma facility relocated, and a government committee has been exploring possible candidate sites.
  The US government, however, maintains that a plan agreed upon by Japan and the United States in 2006 to move the Futenma base to a less densely populated part of Okinawa is the best option. With still a few months away from deciding where to relocate the Futenma facility, CNMI remains a possible relocation site but nothing is set in stone.
  But Fitial said CNMI is “by no means trying to entice the Japanese government to push for the relocation of a base in CNMI as this is solely a decision that will be made by the US government.”
  “The administration and the MIMC will respect and support any such decisions that are made,” Fitial said in a statement, adding that he and the MIMC will be open to any dialogue that the US Department of Defense may want to engage in.
  “However, any such dialogue would have to be at the request of the federal government,” he said.
  Japan maintained that the views of the US military on the relocation issue are important and that discussions are expected to take place on whether the necessary deterrence can be maintained in the Asia-Pacific region if all the Marine functions in Okinawa are transferred to Tinian.
  Tinian played a major role during World War II. It was the staging area for the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end the war.  The island’s North Field was the largest operational base during the war.
  Talks about the military buildup also led the CNMI governor and the Tinian mayor to ask US Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to help build a museum or visitor’s center that will depict Tinian’s role in World War II.
  The US military operations on Tinian was one of the most important phases of the “Manhattan Project,” the codename for a $2-billion project (which is $22 billion in current value) conducted during World War II to develop the first atomic bomb. The project employed over 130,000 people from 1942 to 1946. “A National Park Service visitor’s center should be established on Tinian, so that every Marine and every visitor to Tinian can become aware of the role Tinian played in World War II,” the CNMI officials told the US Interior secretary in a Feb. 9 letter.
  They said the American Memorial Park in the CNMI’s capital Saipan was established as a direct a result of the Covenant negotiations, which resulted from the Tinian agreement to have two-thirds of the island leased to the US Department of Defense. They also cited the establishment of the War in the Pacific Park in Guam, to educate the general public about the role of Guam in World War II.
  “It is time such a national park is established on Tinian,” the CNMI officials added.