Birmingham News
September 9, 2003

Editorials

No defense:  GAO critiques program for destroying weapons

09/09/03

The Pentagon's effort to destroy the U.S. stockpile of chemical weapons isn't going smoothly, the General Accounting Office reported.

No kidding.

For those of us who have watched the Army's incinerator project in Anniston, the GAO report is hardly a great revelation. The fits and starts and misfires associated with that facility have been painfully obvious.

The GAO report provides a seal of legitimacy to those who have questioned the Army's handiwork in Anniston - which is but a part of the government's Chemical Demilitarization Program.

"The program remains in turmoil," GAO concluded. "The lack of sustained leadership at both the upper levels of oversight and at the program-manager level confuses the decision-making authority and obscures accountability."

The confusion impacts safety, costs and the timetable for getting the job done. By next April, the United States is supposed to have destroyed 45 percent of its stores of mustard gas, sarin and other chemical weapons. The Pentagon is already asking for more time, and has no hope of meeting the 2007 deadline in an international treaty to finish eliminating the stockpile. Anniston's scheduled completion date has been pushed back to 2011.

Anniston's schedule was slowed in part by unresolved issues over emergency plans. Not to belabor past failings, but the Anniston community was fed a steady diet of conflicting advice and broken promises before the incinerator began operations. The fog hasn't exactly lifted since the incinerator's startup, either. For instance, the Army just had to do a big about-face after claiming that a real sarin leak at the facility had been a false alarm.

Such confusion isn't limited to Anniston. The GAO said high turnover and other management problems have led to missed deadlines, cost overruns and a lack of a clear plan for how to carry out and monitor this dangerous and important mission.

The Department of Defense offers no real defense. Indeed, it acknowledges the GAO report is true. That's a good first step. But citizens must demand better management of this critical program. Defense officials who are overseeing the destruction of deadly blister and nerve agents must get their act together - and fast.