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Strykers face new court fight

Oct-24-2006 » Filed Under: 2/25 SBCT

By William Cole, Honolulu Advertiser

Three Hawaiian groups are seeking a federal court halt to all Army Stryker activities until alternatives to basing the fast-strike unit in Hawai'i are examined.

The latest court clash comes as the commanding general of U.S. Army Pacific at Fort Shafter, Lt. Gen. John M. Brown III, confirmed that the 3,900-soldier Stryker brigade, already well into training, is slated for an Iraq deployment.

Halting the training would be wrong, Brown said, and "not providing full training for these soldiers before sending them into combat would be irresponsible and criminal."

But in a 2-1 decision on Oct. 5, the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Army violated environmental law in planning for the arrival of the armored vehicle unit, and that it must complete a supplementary environmental analysis to consider alternatives to basing a Stryker brigade in the Islands.

David Henkin, an Earthjustice attorney representing the Hawaiian groups, said Brown "is playing the emotion card."

"We're not talking about not training the soldiers. We're talking about where we're going to train the soldiers," Henkin said. "We've heard this time and time again in the Makua (Military Reservation) context where the court says, 'Hey, you know what? You've got a lot of other places where you can train these soldiers.' "

Although an Army official previously said the Stryker unit would deploy to Iraq next summer with its 19-ton, eight-wheeled vehicles, Brown said training is on schedule to culminate in November 2007. [...]


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