The Pentagon had called for the closure of the Submarine Base New London in Connecticut as part of a sweeping plan to close or realign hundreds of US military facilities to save money and eliminate excess capacity.

The Base Realignment and Closure Commission voted 7 to one with one abstention to strike down the Pentagon's recommendation, which would have dispersed the base's 17 fast attack submarines to bases in Virginia and Georgia.

The commission also voted to keep open the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Maine, in the first of three days of decisions on 837 military facilities, including 33 major bases, recommended for closure or realignment.

The commission voted to close a number of army bases on the Pentagon's list, including Forts McPherson and Gillem in Georgia; Fort Monroe, Virginia; and Fort Monmouth, New Jersey.

The Pentagon's recommendation on the New London submarine base was "complicated by ... the threat data presented to us on many occasions of other world events that are taking place, particularly in Asia," said retired general Lloyd Newton in presenting the motion.

"I find it would be a big mistake to close this base at the present time," he said.

Closure of the submarine base had been sharply opposed by retired naval officers, particularly submariners who worried that it signaled a decline for their branch of the navy.

Former president Jimmy Carter, a former submariner, wrote the commission a letter opposing the base's closure.

It also met stiff opposition from some members of Congress because of its potential impact on the economy of the northeast. The base employs some 8,000 military personnel and civilians.

Anthony Principi, the commission chairman, said the base's co-location with Electric Boat, which builds the nuclear powered submarines, would be difficult to replicate elsewhere.

"Emerging regional threats that we face in the world today leaves uncertain the force structure of nuclear submarines in the future," he said before the vote.

"If we close New London down we'll never get it back," he said.

The Pentagon argued that the military's requirements for 55 attack submarines could be absorbed on the US east coast by existing submarine bases at Norfolk, Virginia and Kings Bay, Georgia.

James Hansen, the panel's lone dissenter, noted that the fleet of US attack submarines has dropped from just over 100 during the Cold War to about 55 today.

He said the navy's chief of operations told the commission that the service could make do with 41 submarines.

"You find yourself in a position (where) you got a lot of parking space you're just not going to use," he said.

The commission will submit its final decisions to President George W. Bush who must either accept or reject the list in its entirety. If Bush accepts the changes, they will go to Congress for an up or down vote.

In past rounds of base closures, BRAC commissions have typically endorsed about 85 percent of the Pentagon's recommendations.

US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld defended the Pentagon's closure list on Tuesday as an intricate, two-and-a-half year effort to mesh base closures with a broader reorganization of the military and the return from Europe and Asia of some 70,000 US troops.

The Pentagon's recommendations "didn't come out of midair. And there wasn't an ounce of politics in any aspect of it," Rumsfeld said.

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