By James R. Carroll
jcarroll@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Mitch McConnell is trying to force the Pentagon to abandon its proposal to delay the destruction of aging chemical weapons at Kentucky's Blue Grass Army Depot.

McConnell, R-Ky., this week won the Appropriations Committee's approval of a requirement that Defense Department officials press ahead with original plans to eliminate the munitions early in the next decade.

Citing rising costs, the Pentagon in December said it would hold up work on a depot facility to destroy 523 tons of weapons, including the nerve gas sarin and VX, a toxic liquid. The facility was scheduled to begin operations in 2010 and would take about two years to destroy the munitions.

"Our goal is to keep the project on track," McConnell told reporters yesterday after the committee voted late Wednesday to include the so-called "directive" in a fiscal 2005 supplemental spending bill.

The bill is primarily for the war in Iraq and tsunami aid.

Asked about McConnell's directive, spokeswoman Kathy DeWeese for the Pentagon's Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives program said, "If it becomes law, we will set about doing what we can to implement it."

McConnell said there was no opposition in the Senate to the directive, which eliminates any Pentagon discretion on the matter, and he did not expect any in the House during a conference later this month to work out a final version of the bill.

He predicted final passage and President Bush's signature "within the next month or so."

The effort was praised by advocates of destroying the weapons.

"Obviously, it breathes new life into the disposal process here in Kentucky," said Craig Williams, director of the Chemical Weapons Working Group, a watchdog organization based in Berea, Ky.

Berea Mayor Steven Connelly called McConnell's move "good news."

"We are one of the more populated areas that have a significant portion of the nerve gas rockets, and we think every day they grow older they are more of a hazard," Connelly said.

Rep. Ben Chandler, a Democrat whose 6th District includes the Blue Grass depot in Richmond, called McConnell's provision a "victory for the citizens in Madison County who have fought for over 20 years to see these chemical weapons destroyed in a safe and timely manner."

Sarin attacks the nervous system through the eyes and skin and can cause death in minutes.

VX, considered more toxic than sarin, turns to gas when exposed to oxygen and can be absorbed through the skin or inhaled. A 10-mg drop can kill within 15 minutes.

The military, citing rising costs and slipping schedules in its chemical weapons destruction program, has been looking at alternatives for chemical weapons at Blue Grass and a similar site in Pueblo, Colo., including moving them to other facilities for destruction or storage.

McConnell's no-delay directive applies to the Colorado site as well.

The provision states that the Pentagon could not transfer to other chemical weapons destruction sites the $813.4 million set aside from congressional appropriations in previous years for Kentucky and Colorado.

The directive also forces the Pentagon to spend $100 million at the Kentucky and Colorado sites within four months of passage of the appropriations bill. The Defense Department also would be required to report to Congress every two months on how it was spending chemical weapons money at the two sites.

The provision also would bar the Pentagon from studying the transportation of chemical weapons across state lines.

Such a study already is under way.

Assistant Defense Secretary Dale Klein told a House Armed Services subcommittee on Wednesday that his agency was examining the possible movement of weapons among a number of cost-saving alternatives.

Kentucky lawmakers do not consider that an option.

"They can study until they're blue in the face -- it's not going to happen," McConnell said.

"Our citizens deserve full respect from the Department of Defense, not millions of dollars in frozen funding, proposed budget cuts and unacceptable studies to transport the weapons through their back yard," Chandler said.