Saving base jobs from budget cuts

WRIGHT-PATTERSON A.F.B., Ohio (WDTN) - A local Congressman and officials at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base hope a top military official's look Monday at one of the base's key missions will help save jobs there in the case of budget cuts.

The missions are largely classified, but if you want to know what the National Air and Space Intelligence Center (NASIC) does, Congressman Mike Turner says one appropriations committee member put it best.

"He said, 'James Bond exists and he lives at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base,'" Turner says.

But '007' never had to deal with sequestration, the more than $1 trillion in budget cuts, half to the defense department, if Congress and the President don't reach a deal by March.

So Turner toured NASIC Monday with the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency Lt. General Michael Flynn to show him its level of importance to our national security.

"When we think of what America should be doing to assist its allies and to evaluate those who might threaten us, those things are performed at NASIC," Turner says.

2 NEWS wasn't able to go on the tour because of the sensitive nature of what was being looked at but afterward Lt. General Flynn seemed to agree that what goes on at NASIC matters.

"This is one of our crown jewels in our entire intelligence system," Lt. Gen. Flynn says.

It's not top secret that if sequestration goes through, something will have to be cut, but what exactly and what it's impact will be on Wright-Patt and NASIC is still unknown.

"Why I'm here today is to ensure I have a much better appreciation of any decisions that will be made about any part of our entire enterprise and to ensure those decisions are made with our eyes wide open," Flynn says.