Even GAO and officials saw Soto Cano as no longer needed

Evidence

The end of the Cold War effectively ended the wars in Central America. With U.S. funding for the Contras withdrawn, a GAO report declared, “The original reasons for the establishment of U.S. presence at Soto Cano no longer exist.” Many U.S. military and diplomatic officials agreed that the contributions made to new U.S. policy goals in the region by this “expensive, semi-permanent logistics base” were “incidental and not reason enough to maintain the presence.” Officials saw that any counternarcotics or disaster relief operations in the region could be conducted just as effectively from domestic bases. — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 294