Don’t break this promise

In our opinion
01-18-2005

Let’s make one thing absolutely clear: The last thing this community needs right now is another shipment of chemical weapons to burn. We’ve got our full complement already, thank you. Before construction of the chemical demilitarization facility ever began at the Anniston Army Depot — to begin disposing of more than 7 percent of the nation’s chemical weapons stockpile — the good people of Northeast Alabama asked for and received assurances that no other munitions would be transported in here to be destroyed. Army and government officials assured us that once the job was done, and the last weapon stored at Bynum had been burned, that the facility itself would be dismantled and destroyed, just like its older sister facility at Johnston Atoll. Local incineration proponents, in fact, came up with a catchy slogan to emphasize this thinking: “Build it, burn it, forget it.” Now comes word, through a Dec. 21 memo, that because of budget stresses the Pentagon is exploring the possibility of cutting back funding for the demil program around the country. And one way the memo considers dealing with the shortfall is through “relocation if necessary.” Translated, that means, under the Pentagon plan, weapons and blister agent could conceivably be transported from Kentucky to Anniston for disposal. (Kentucky’s demil facility is not yet constructed). We should bear in mind that it’s only a memo, and an awful long way from passage by Congress, so there’s no need to panic just yet. In order to consider such a drastic move, protocols would have to be shifted, regulations altered, and a 1986 federal law would have to be circumvented. Of course, we should be reminded that we live in the era of the Bush administration, which has shown a willingness to break from protocol and established laws before. After all, what’s really at the heart of the matter is that defense dollars are being squeezed these days, primarily because of President Bush’s misguided adventure in Iraq, This operation, never properly budgeted or planned, has turned into an open-ended disaster. The war has already cost U.S. taxpayers $200 billion, and no one is willing to posit a guess as to exactly how much it will all cost in the end. Couple the White House’s and Republican-dominated Congress’s mindless obsession with war-time tax cuts, and you have the recipe for defense budgeting crisis. Even so, poor planning by the administration and the Department of Defense is no reason to renege on a promise made to this community. We are heartened to hear that Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby, for one, is not very taken with the idea of cuts to the demil program. He told this page, in fact, that he “would be concerned with any cuts to funding that would significantly delay the construction of new chemical weapons incinerators.” At risk to our lifestyle, livelihood and all we hold dear, we have taken on the responsibility for destroying the weapons and agent in our own backyard. We need not do more than that. This page calls upon our Congressional delegation, most notably our own 3rd District Rep. Mike Rogers, and Sens. Shelby and Jeff Sessions, to join with others on Capitol Hill — including Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell – in stopping this nonsense before it ever gets started. Moving aging chemical weaponry across state lines is a plain bad idea to begin with; to entertain the possibility now, in the midst of heightened security and terror alerts across the land, borders on insanity.

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