(FRANKFORT, Ky.) -- U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell said Tuesday he was disappointed that the Pentagon is "backsliding" on its commitment to destroy a stockpile of chemical weapons in central Kentucky.

"They would subject the people living near the Blue Grass Army Depot to the dangers of chemical weapons until well into the 2020s," McConnell said in a statement. "I am going to continue to lead the fight to ensure that these heinous weapons are disposed of in a safe and timely manner."

Weapons, including mustard gas, sarin and VX, have been stored in bunkers near Richmond for about 60 years and were scheduled to be eliminated by 2012. However, Pentagon spokesman Maj. Stewart Upton said the Department of Defense will not be able to meet that schedule.

"Destroying these weapons safely is not a fast, or simple, process," he said Tuesday in a statement. Original cost estimates for destruction of the weapons didn't take into account a number of unforeseen costs, he said.

Tons of the weapons, which are leftovers from the Cold War, are stored at the Kentucky depot, about 30 miles east of Frankfort. Some of the more deadly materials are stored in underground igloos and surrounded by a double barbed-wire fence and acres of forest.

Community leaders in Madison County also lashed out Tuesday, saying the Pentagon's plan to delay destruction of the weapons jeopardizes public safety.

State Sen. Ed Worley, D-Richmond, said the community was disappointed by the plan, and hoped Kentucky's congressional delegation could help.

"Unfortunately, it appears that everything we've got in this nation is going to Iraq, and that is the money drain not only on military projects here, but all across the nation and it's very unfortunate," Worley said. "There very well may not be chemical weapons in Iraq, but there sure are in Richmond, Kentucky."

Madison County Judge-Executive Kent Clark called news of the delay unbelievable. "We've got a problem here, and they've just pulled the rug out from under us again," he said.

Craig Williams, director of the Chemical Weapons Working Group, a watchdog organization in Berea that is pushing for the weapons' neutralization, said the highest risk to the community is not in disposing of the materials, but in storing them.

"It's like saying we don't want to spend the money on air marshals so we're going to pull them all off the airlines and take our chances with terrorists," he said.

Last month, McConnell attended a groundbreaking ceremony for the construction of a new $2 billion neutralization plant where the destruction of the weapons will take place.

"It has been a hard road to get where we are today," McConnell said at the time. "We have had to push the Pentagon every step of the way."