Following intense criticism from Congress, the Department of Defense has
put a controversial chemical weapons disposal study on the back burner. The
study included an option for the removal of weapons from two previously planned
disposal sites as part of the Pentagon’s efforts to eliminate the U.S. chemical
weapons stockpile.
Simultaneously, Congress and the Defense Department have taken steps to
move forward with design work for disposal facilities at the sites in Pueblo,
Colorado, and Blue Grass, Kentucky.
The Pentagon decisions came in an April 15 memorandum written by Michael
Wynne, the undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics,
and obtained by the private Chemical Weapons Working Group. Nearly a month
later, lawmakers reinforced the decisions as part of a supplemental spending
bill.
The Defense Department had been looking for ways to bring the total costs
of destroying weapons at the two sites down while still meeting U.S. obligations
under the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). That treaty’s extended deadline
calls for the destruction of all U.S. chemical weapons by 2012. About 10
percent of the U.S. stockpile is at the sites in Colorado and Kentucky, but
the Pentagon is leery of constructing new facilities at a time when costs
at existing facilities have already exceeded their budget.
Besides transportation, the study was to consider other destruction methods
such as incineration or acceleration of the neutralizing process. It was
also tasked with consulting with the CWC’s implementing body to determine
if it was possible to receive credit for destroying chemical weapons earlier
in the destruction process. (See ACT,
March 2005.)
Facing congressional opposition to the possibility of moving the weapons,
the Pentagon opted to back off portions of the study that would have examined
whether it should shift the weapons to currently operating disposal facilities
in other states. Wynne wrote that officials had enough information to proceed
with design work without “the necessity to address the concept of transportation
at this time.” Current federal law prohibits the transportation of chemical
munitions.
Wynne also released nearly $300 million in funds for design work at the
two sites, the only remaining stockpile sites of nine total sites without
operational facilities. The Defense Department had stopped design work at
each site and placed them in caretaker status while it determined how to
lower costs.
Still, Wynne hinted that someday it might be necessary to reconsider the
ban on transportation. At a April 11 subcommittee hearing of the Senate Armed
Services Committee, he told senators that it was his intention to study all
alternatives and that “we should all hold that alternative open and never
let it go until such time as we see that we can meet effectively, efficiently,
and…safely the on-site destruction.”
When and if the study will be released is unclear. Gregory Mahall, a spokesperson
for the Army’s Chemical Materials Agency (CMA), told Arms Control Today
that, although CMA has completed the study of alternatives in late March,
Wynne has not asked CMA to present its findings.
Lt. Commander Joe Carpenter, a Defense Department spokesperson, said there
is still interest in the study, but “we need an opportunity to look at it.”
He said the Defense Department planned to present its findings to Congress
in late June.
At the same time, Congress has moved to reinforce existing laws and provide
the Colorado and Kentucky sites with additional funding. The most recent
fiscal year 2005 supplemental appropriations bill passed by Congress and
signed by President George W. Bush May 11 requires the Pentagon to release
funds for the two sites and prevents their redirection to other facilities.
Many in Congress had been concerned that funding for the sites was being
diverted to help cover rising costs at the operational sites. The legislation
also obligates the Defense Department to spend at least $100 million within
120 days and banned any future studies that involved the transportation of
weapons.
At a recent markup of the fiscal year 2006 defense authorization bill,
the Senate Armed Services Committee also added $20 million to the amount
requested by Bush in his budget for the two sites, raising the total to $53
million. It is not clear, however, if the additional funds will allow the
completion of all destruction activities by 2012. At congressional hearings
held last year, Defense Department officials asserted that the Colorado and
Kentucky sites were scheduled to finish their work right before that deadline,
but recent design work stoppages may have affected the overall schedule.
As it becomes more likely that the United States will miss the 2012 deadline,
a Senate Armed Services subcommittee asked Deputy Assistant Secretary of
State for Arms Control Donald Mahley to speak about the consequences of missing
the CWC’s final deadline.
“I do not believe we will damage our international influence fatally if
we have not completed our destruction,” said Mahley, “so long as we are continuing
to devote obvious and extensive effort and resources to the program and…continue
to inform other parties of the nature of our progress.”
Mahley said that there is no automatic penalty for noncompliance, although
other states-parties could choose to pursue individual or collective actions.
Under Article XII of the CWC, a stateparty could choose to suspend the CWC
between itself and the noncompliant state, vote to bar the noncompliant state
from voting in the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons,
or seek sanctions, such as restricting trade in industrial chemicals.
Still, Mahley expressed concern that the other major chemical weapons
holder, Russia, would use the U.S. failure “as an excuse to further submerge
its own destruction program in competing budget priorities and to justify
its own failure to meet the treaty deadline.”
The United States has destroyed about 35 percent its chemical weapons
stockpile, the second-largest in the world, and must destroy 45 percent of
its stockpile by the next interim deadline in December 2007. Russia has destroyed
less than 5 percent of its stockpile, which is the largest in the world.
