WASHINGTON (IPS)�President Bill Clinton, seeking to defuse a festering protest that has united Puerto Rico against the U.S. Navy, promised Dec. 3 to phase-out in five years all military training on Vieques Island, the main live-fire training ground for the U.S. Atlantic fleet since 1941.

Until then, according to a Pentagon recommendation accepted by Mr. Clinton, training will be limited to dummy bombs and shells.

Live-fire training will be resumed only if the people of the island agree, according to the plan, which also calls for training exercises to be halved from the 180 days per year to 90 days.

If training is resumed, the Navy, which runs the base, will provide $440 million in community development programs designed to compensate the 9,300 islanders who have endured the exercises for nearly 60 years.

In addition, Mr. Clinton has ordered the aircraft carrier USS Eisenhower and its battle group to proceed to other training sites off the mainland and Scotland before steaming to the Mediterranean for its regular tour.

Washington will not resume any training at Vieques until next spring, according to the plan which calls for the intervening period to be used for consultations between the Navy and the people of Vieques.

"I am convinced that this plan meets my essential responsibility as Commander-in-Chief to assure that our military forces are satisfactorily trained and ready while, at the same time, addressing the legitimate concerns of the people of Vieques," Mr. Clinton said in a statement issued by the White House.

The plan was announced after intensive negotiations led by Mr. Clinton himself, a week earlier, between the Pentagon and Puerto Rican Governor Pedro Rossello and other Puerto Rican leaders.

While it marks a significant climb down from the Pentagon�s long-held position that the firing range was irreplaceable, it may still prove unacceptable both to the islanders and the general public in Puerto Rico, which has rallied behind demands that the facility be closed immediately.

Gov. Rossello�s press secretary said only two weeks before the Clinton decision that the governor�s position was "live or non-live, no more bombs, not one more."

That Mr. Clinton himself referred to the period of time between now and when the next training exercises are scheduled in the spring as a "breathing space" suggests that serious negotiations between Puerto Rico and the Navy lie ahead.

"We do not have here in the present arrangement a definitive solution," said Navy Secretary Richard Danzig.

It is also politically risky. Republicans are almost certain to assail the administration for not ensuring Navy pilots the best possible training facilities before sending them into hazardous duty.

The fact that First Lady Hillary Clinton is campaigning to become a U.S. senator in New York state, home to hundreds of thousands of Puerto Rican voters, is bound to add fuel to the Republican fire. She has called publicly for the Navy to abandon the island.

Last August, Mr. Danzig, a political appointee, argued that "the loss of Vieques would degrade the readiness of our sailors and Marines for battle." He insisted Dec. 3, however, that all servicemen will be ready for any contingency by the time the Eisenhower battle group takes up positions in the Mediter-ranean. Puerto Rico came under U.S. control in the opening days of the Spanish-American War 101 years ago. Puerto Ricans gained U.S. citizenship in 1917, but, des-pite repeated opportunities, have always declined to vote either for full independence or for statehood.

Vieques lies just off the east coast of Puerto Rico, opposite Roosevelt Roads Naval Station, the Navy�s largest military base.

Since WWII, the island, about two-thirds of which is owned by the Navy, has been used for targeting practice by warplanes and naval vessels. The Navy has also rented out the firing range to its NATO allies and some Latin American navies and air forces, as well.

Mr. Danzig said Dec. 3 that the bombing range has operated safely for 58 years without a single off-range incident until last April, when a Marine Corps aircraft accidentally dropped two bombs near an observation post, killing a civilian security guard.

But local residents have complained for years about the noise and explosions�which go on day and night during exercises. Local fishermen, the island�s only indigenous in-dustry, have led the protests against the Navy.