The gate at Redstone Arsenal in Alabama. (AL.com/TNS)
(Tribune News Service) — U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama said in a statement Thursday that Colorado politicians are suffering from “sore loser syndrome” over evaluations that have made Huntsville’s Redstone Arsenal the “preferred” choice to be the permanent home of U.S. Space Command headquarters.
Tuberville called on leaders to “embrace” the Air Force’s decision and that energy moving forward should focus on the relocation of Space Command from its startup home in Colorado Springs.
Tuberville made his comments in a letter dated Wednesday to the Senate Armed Services Committee.
“At this point, the biggest thing standing in the way of SPACECOM is political inertia and sore loser syndrome, each a detriment to U.S. military effectiveness,” Tuberville said in the letter. “It’s time we embrace the Air Force’s decision and move forward together.”
The Air Force announced in January 2021 that it had identified Redstone Arsenal as the “preferred” site for the Space Command HQ. Colorado politicians responded in an uproar over the announcement but two reviews of that decision-making process have sided with the Huntsville site.
“After 15 months of delay, Congress just received reports from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and Department of Defense Inspector General (DoD IG),” Tuberville said in the letter. “Both reports confirmed that the Air Force basing process was thorough, legal, and comprehensive; both confirmed Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama ranked highest at every stage of the process.
“For the sake of national security and military readiness, I will strongly oppose further efforts to unnecessarily delay this critical move.”
Threats from other world powers give an urgency to moving forward with the Space Command relocation, Tubervillle said in the letter.
“To date, I and others from Alabama have largely declined to engage in a public back and forth on this issue because doing so would not have been helpful to national security,” Tuberville wrote. “Instead, we have sought to allow the facts and the integrity of the process to speak for themselves. Given the recent DoD IG and GAO findings, as well as the grave threats we face from China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, we must move forward.”
Tuberville’s letter also included a review of developments leading to the Air Force’s decision to move Space Command to Alabama.
“As you will see, the process has been robust and objective, the investigations extensive, and the conclusion the same throughout: Redstone Arsenal is the best place for SPACECOM,” Tuberville said in the letter.
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