Ed Lynch, a retired military official and lawyer who is now the program manager of the Pacific Fleet, said the commonwealth’s 14 island-chain will be the westernmost U.S. training area for military personnel.
“It’s U.S. territory so it’s extremely important to us,” Lynch told the Variety in an interview after their presentation on Friday in the chamber of the House of Representatives.
He said the CNMI and its people have always been a strong ally of the U.S. military,
The people of the Northern Marianas are patriotic, he added.
The islands, he noted, provide capabilities “to train our anti-submarine warfare and sub-surface forces [and to] train our surface forces. Every aspect of military training, if you will, can be accomplished to a certain degree in the Marianas.”
According to Lynch, aerial and naval training for U.S. troops and the nation’s allies is very important.
“There’s no intent to have foreign forces train on U.S. soil except for a combined training exercise. We have numerous bilateral agreements throughout the Asia-Pacific area,” he said.
The U.S. allies in the region include the Philippines, Singapore, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.
Under the proposed Mariana Islands Range Complex, 501,809 square miles of ocean areas and 63,000 square miles of airspace will be utilized by the U.S. military.
Additionally, 7,400 acres of public land on Tinian are exclusively set aside for the military’s use.
A series of public hearings will be held on Saipan on Feb. 23, on Tinian on Feb. 24, and on Rota on Feb. 26 as part of the process in drafting the environmental impact statement/overseas environmental impact statement for the Mariana Islands Range Complex project.
