The Defense Department plans to announce a realignment of forces overseas within 90 days, a move that will have a ripple effect on plans to close military bases in the United States.

Raymond DuBois, deputy undersecretary of Defense for installations and environment, said thousands of troops stationed overseas will likely be brought home, and the department will have to choose stateside bases for them. He testified Feb. 12 before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Military Construction.

Changes in Army personnel policies could help shape the 2005 round of base closings, The Washington Post reported Feb. 10.

The Army announced it will end its policy of frequently rotating troops from one base to another; instead, soldiers will be stationed at one base for much of their careers, in an effort to improve combat readiness and ease stress on military families.

The policy would favor large bases such as Fort Hood, TX, and Fort Bragg, NC, the Post reported. The big bases are home to several units and training centers, giving troops the opportunity to gain experience in different assignments without moving.

Pentagon officials have said as much as one-fourth of domestic base capacity will be eliminated.

The Army Corps of Engineers plans to consolidate 972 separate information technology contracts into a single one, Federal Computer Week reported.

Chief Information Officer Will Berrios said the Corps will move IT management from local offices to its eight regional offices. He spoke at a Feb. 11 briefing held by Federal Sources Inc. in McLean, Va.

Business opportunities will center on networks, rather than personal computers and local area networks, he said, adding, “It’s all about networks and how to manage them.”

The Internal Revenue Service says it will exclude its prime IT contractor, Computer Sciences Corp., from bidding on the next round of technology modernization projects because of delays and cost overruns on the company’s existing contracts.

Two of CSC’s major projects, the Customer Account Data Engine system and the Integrated Financial System, are far behind schedule and far over budget, IRS Commissioner Mark Everson told the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Oversight Feb. 12.

Paul Cofoni, president of CSC’s federal sector, told the subcommittee that the company accepts responsibility for the problems, but said many of them were the result of frequent change orders from the IRS.

The Department of Homeland Security’s R&D arm has selected 66 small businesses in 23 states for its first Small Business Innovation Research Program grants.

The firms were chosen by the Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency. Each firm will receive up to $100,000 for six months to define the scientific, technical and commercial merit of a particular concept. Firms whose concepts prove successful may be invited to apply for a two-year Phase II award of up to $750,000 to further develop the concept, usually to the prototype stage.

The Army, the Department of Homeland Security and the National Institutes of Health plan to build three separate laboratories at Fort Detrick, MD, to create a national biodefense campus, the Baltimore Sun reported Feb. 11.

The three labs would cost about $1 billion. A fourth lab for the Department of Agriculture is under consideration for the same site in Frederick County, MD.

One official told the newspaper the federal biodefense research budget has swelled from $305 million in 2001 to nearly $4 billion this year.

Some public health experts question whether this is overkill. We’re putting billions of dollars into a putative threat of disputed relevance at a time when there’s a shortage of flu vaccine and measles vaccine,” said Milton Leitenberg, an expert on biowarfare at the University of Maryland’s Center for International and Security Studies.