FRANK SESNO, CNN ANCHOR: To Puerto Rico now where a long- simmering dispute over a U.S. Navy bombing range on the island of Vieques threatens to boil over. Two Navy ships are en route to provide offshore assistance to federal agents who plan to remove demonstrators from the range. They've been trying to close it since a stray bomb killed a civilian security guard last year. Puerto Rico's Independence Party leader is warning of dire political consequences if protesters are forcibly removed. He says they're prepared to be arrested, but warns that could provoke an election-year backlash among Puerto Rican Voters. We get more on the year-long dispute from CNN military affairs correspondent Jamie McIntyre at the Pentagon. Jamie, the argument from your building that this test range is necessary for testing.</s>JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN MILITARY AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: The Pentagon insist that this is the only place on the East Coast where the United States can conduct combined air, sea and land exercises with live fire munition on this tiny island which they've owned about three-quarters of since the end of World War II. But at this point it looks like federal law enforcement officials will be going ahead and clearing the island very soon, perhaps as soon as tomorrow. Those two Navy ships that you mentioned have already arrived in Puerto Rico in the Navy base at Roosevelt Roads, which is just across from Vieques. And it appears that -- the Pentagon insists that the U.S. military will not take part in the removal operation, that that will all done by FBI agents, federal marshals, and local Puerto Rican police will provide some crowd control, presumably trying to keep additional protesters from arriving. The protesters themselves -- there's only a handful -- they say they will go peacefully, although some say they will hide on the vast bombing range to try to thwart the federal agents. But at this point, they also say they'll send more protesters if the first one are removed -- Frank.</s>SESNO: Jamie McIntyre at the Pentagon.
Dispute Over U.S. Navy Bombing Range on Puerto Rico's Vieques Island Threatens to Boil Over