Anniston Star
January 18, 2003

Chemical weapons program leadership to change

By Amy Sieckmann
Star Staff Writer
01-18-2003

The Army publicly announced Friday that it has again shifted the duty for overseeing the destruction of chemical weapons to a new official.

The change removes the responsibility from the official who recently masterminded a plan to blame Calhoun County's preparedness troubles on local government.
Army Assistant Secretary Claude Bolton will assume responsibility for the program's management on Feb. 18.

Bolton recently retired as a major general in the Air Force and has held numerous acquisition posts in the Army. In his new position, he will create an agency that will put all aspects of chemical weapons storage and destruction under one roof.

Local and national officials praised the Army's decision to take Army Assistant Secretary Mario Fiori off the job and transfer the responsibility back to the Army office where it was housed before it was given to Fiori about 13 months ago.

Neither Army nor public officials could say if the shift will mean any changes in the local chemical weapons disposal plan.

"At the Anniston level, I don't know what the short-term or long-term changes might be," said Mike Abrams, Army public affairs officer for the Anniston incinerator.

Abrams said a number of key decisions need to be made. After those decisions are made, then officials will be told if there is any significant change to Anniston's program.

Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Tuscaloosa, said in a statement that he supports structural and financial reform of the chemical demilitarization program, and added, "These changes are long overdue."

A series of e-mails leaked to the press in September showed that Fiori was the leader in a public relations plot to blame Calhoun County's emergency preparedness problems on the local government. County Commissioner Eli Henderson said he was happy to hear Fiori is gone and said he hopes the new Army leadership will cooperate more with local government.

"Mr. Fiori has misled us the whole time he was in office," Henderson said. "He told us a lot of things were going to happen that never happened."

The new agency

The details of the shift in responsibility were laid out in a memo from Secretary of the Army Thomas White. Historically, the Army has had two separate agencies overseeing its chemical weapons - one oversaw storage; the other oversaw destruction.

Now, both will be under the leadership of Bolton, who will be assisted by Army Materiel Command Gen. Paul Kern. Kern is a four-star general who was involved in the Army Acquisition Corps.

Bolton and Kern will handle all aspects of the chemical demilitarization program in the new Chemical Materials Agency they have been instructed to create.

A single individual, a director of the new agency, will be named to serve under them. That director would be assisted by two senior-level deputies with one overseeing the building of the destruction plants and the other overseeing the actual destruction, Army officials said.

The officials set to serve under Bolton and Kern have not been named.

Bolton, Kern and Fiori could not be reached Friday for comment.

Local Emergency Management Agency executive director Mike Burney said moving all the demilitarization programs into one agency could help reduce some red tape for local officials seeking more emergency preparedness funding.

"I think that's a positive move maybe that will give it some accountability and control that hasn't been there in the past," Burney said. "Maybe it will eliminate some of the multi-layer bureaucracy that we have had to deal with over the last 13 years."