The letter was sent following Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta’s response during a House Armed Services Committee hearing where he was questioned about the Guam buildup, and he answered, “What buildup? We are focused on a careful reduction in spending.”
Guthertz also brought up Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter’s comment to the Senate that the realignment plan was “on the table for cutting.”
“When our delegate, Madeleine Bordallo, asked Secretary Panetta about this at a House Armed Services Committee hearing, he reassured her that the Department of Defense continued to support the realignment. However, he then backtracked by saying, ‘The challenge is going to be to try to make sure that we do it in a cost-effective way.’”
Guthertz wrote that perhaps Panetta chose his words in reaction to the pressures placed upon the Defense Department to reduce its budget and “the ongoing drama surrounding the super committee, rather than the realignment project.”
In the bilateral agreement, Japan has committed to providing several billion dollars for the realignment project and has maintained the schedule for payment into the U.S. Treasury.
“This is even in the face of the twin disasters hitting Japan last March. Japan has been a solid ally in living up to the financial demands of the agreement,” Guthertz said.
“On the U.S. side, we have mixed signals. A few senators oppose the realignment and have meddled in the funding appropriation process for it. One, Senator [Tom] Coburn, has even called for bringing the Marines back to the U.S. mainland,” wrote Guthertz.
Guthertz told the president, “What the people of Guam need is a clear and definitive statement of your support for the realignment of Marines from Okinawa to Guam, regardless of other financial pressures on the Defense Department.”
Further, she asked the president “to expand such thinking throughout the Pentagon’s bureaucracy in line with your and Secretary Panetta’s commitment to the International Agreement with Japan.”
Guthertz also recommended Obama ask some of his allies in the Senate “to tutor Senator Coburn in American history. Every president since FDR, Democrat and Republican alike, has supported American engagement in world events and a robust American military presence in the Pacific. Now is not the time to return to isolationism with China, North Korea, Japan, India, and other nations being so active in Asia and the Pacific.”
“What signal would be sent if the U.S. withdrew her Marines from Okinawa back to the mainland? Sir, we call upon you to reassure a confused community in Guam. We surely do not want America to withdraw once again from Guam as she did after World War I, leading to its occupation by enemy troops in 1941. We do not want to be seduced and abandoned again by our great nation,” wrote Guthertz.
