Senators Call for GAO Investigation
of Chemical Stockpile Disposal Program
(Excerpted from the May 2000 issue of CWWG's newsletter "Common Sense")
Responding to CWWG's documented accusations
of gross mismanagement in the Army's Chemical Stockpile Disposal
Program, Senate Appropriators on July 14 called for a General
Accounting Office (GAO) investigation of this program's safety,
management, oversight and fiscal accountability.
In their letter to the Comptroller General of the GAO, the two
Senators, Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Senate Appropriations Foreign
Operations Committee Chair and Ted Stevens (R-AK), Senate Appropriations
Defense Committee Chair, said, "We are concerned that the
Department of Defense has failed to adequately implement the national
strategy [and] to account for the funds appropriated by Congress...."
In 1985, the Army told Congress it would cost $1.7 billion and
take until 1994 to destroy the entire U.S. stockpile. The current
price tag is between $15 and $16 billion with the Army hoping
for completion by the timetable provided for in the recently ratified
Chemical Weapons Convention. The Convention deadline is April
2007 with a one-time five-year extension allowed, moving the deadline
to April 2012.
The Senators' letter stated, "From 1993 to date, Congress
has appropriated $4.5 billion for costs associated with this national
effort" and "...less than 10% of the stockpile has been
destroyed and America's program is struggling to meet its schedule."
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