Army to study moving chemical weapons

By Rob Jordan
Star Staff Writer
01-20-2005

In an announcement met with widespread local concern, the Army said Wednesday that it will study the possibility of transporting stockpiled chemical weapons to existing destruction sites such as Anniston’s incinerator. The announcement came on the heels of an internal Pentagon memo, leaked to the media last week, which hinted at budget cutbacks that would delay by six years construction of demilitarization sites in Kentucky and Colorado. The memo urged consideration of “relocation if necessary among sites.” Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Anniston was adamant in his reaction Wednesday. “I can tell you they are not bringing any more chemical weapons into Anniston. It will be over my cold, dead body,” Rogers said. Citing potential danger to the public, he said he is confident Alabama’s elected officials will universally oppose moving more chemical weapons to Alabama. Rufus Kinney of Anniston-based Families Concerned about Nerve Gas Incineration was equally adamant. “It’s an insult, it’s a disrespect to the people of Alabama,” he said. The Pentagon’s consideration of the idea is a “direct and arrogant” breach of the destruction program’s responsibility to the communities around the stockpile sites, Kinney said. Although federal law prohibits the interstate transport of stockpiled chemical weapons, the law could be amended by a presidential order or act of Congress. Pentagon and Army officials so far have been reluctant to comment on the evaluation process. Greg Mahall, spokesman for the Army’s Chemical Materials Agency, which oversees the destruction program nationwide, said he didn’t know what the study would include. He said the study, due at the Pentagon by Feb. 18, would focus on ways to cut costs while speeding up the over-budget, behind-schedule program. Stockpiles in the U.S. and Russia account for almost all of the world’s known chemical weapons. Neither country will meet the 2007 deadline for completed destruction set in a 1997 treaty, according to a March report by the General Accounting Office. A proposed deadline extension to 2012 also is unlikely to be met, the report said. Army officials blame regulatory and environmental delays for the slow pace and for a program cost which has ballooned from $2 billion to a projected $25 billion. Anniston’s incinerator is slated to complete destruction of the nerve and blister agent stockpile there by 2010. In a 1988 Pentagon document, then-Undersecretary of the Army James R. Ambrose dismissed relocation as an option, citing the potential for “sabotage or terrorism.” Mahall said he didn’t know what had changed to cause Pentagon officials to reconsider, but suggested new information had reduced some safety concerns, such as auto-ignition of sarin-filled rockets while in transit. Donavan Mager, spokesman for Westinghouse Anniston, the contractor in charge of the incinerator’s operations, declined to comment, and Tim Garrett, the Army’s project site manager for Anniston, could not be reached for comment. Craig Williams, director of Chemical Weapons Working Group, a watchdog organization in Kentucky, denounced Wednesday’s announcement and questioned whether Pentagon officials had been forthcoming on the issue. Tuesday, U.S. Senators Wayne Allard and Ken Salazar of Colorado said Pentagon officials had assured them weapons would not be moved from the Colorado stockpile, according to The Pueblo Chieftain newspaper. However, an official with the agency overseeing the destruction program in Colorado and Kentucky told the newspaper he had received orders to halt work at the Colorado site while the Army studies transportation options. “If they’re assuring people (in Colorado) they’re not ever going to do this, why are they using your tax dollars to study this?” Williams said. Julie Fischer, a chemical weapons expert at the nonprofit Stimson Center, expressed doubt that transportation would ever be a feasible option. In an e-mail message, Fischer wrote that such a move would defy accepted wisdom in the post-Sept. 11, 2001 world. “Relocating the weapons would be a major change in U.S. policy, and one that seems dubious at a time when all other Homeland Security policy is focused on limiting access to and transport of potentially vulnerable deadly chemicals,” Fischer wrote.

About Rob Jordan

Rob Jordan covers criminal justice issues for The Star.