The independent commission assessing the Pentagon's proposed list of domestic base closings directed Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Friday to justify more than a dozen of the recommendations, the first clear signal that the panel may alter some of the military's choices.
In one case, the panel asked the Pentagon to explain why it did not recommend closing the naval shipyard at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii even though it is less efficient and had a lower military value than the military's choice for closure, the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Maine.
The commission's requests, contained in a seven-page letter from the panel chairman, Anthony J. Principi, came as federal investigators cautioned in a report issued on Friday that the Pentagon may have overstated the plan's estimated savings of $48.8 billion over 20 years.
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