Weapons destruction won't meet deadline
Efforts could slow at Kentucky site

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

WASHINGTON -- The United States officially is acknowledging it will not meet the 2012 international deadline for destroying all of its chemical weapons, including those at the Blue Grass Army Depot near Richmond, Ky.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in letters Monday to Congress that only two-thirds of the stockpile will be gone by the deadline set by an international treaty.

Some of the weapons in recent years have leaked, though there have been no injuries.

"My fear is everyone is going to back off on the funding," he said.

The implications of not meeting the international treaty deadline on chemical weapons are unclear.

U.S. officials have said meeting the 2012 deadline would be difficult because of technical problems, changes in technology used for destruction and rising costs.

"You have no idea how refreshing it is for them to come out and give an honest assessment of the status of the program after 20 years of consistently underestimating the program's capability to achieve treaty deadlines," Williams said.

The Blue Grass Army Depot has 523 tons of nerve agents waiting to be destroyed. Two months ago, officials said destruction would begin in 2011, a process that would then last about 21/2 years. The Kentucky site accounts for 2 percent of the nation's chemical weapons.

But Katherine DeWeese, spokeswoman for the Defense Department's Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives Program, said plant redesigns and new cost estimates make dates for starting operations uncertain. More definite information will be ready by the fall, she said.

Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell's press secretary, Robert Steurer, said the delay was expected.

"Senator McConnell's goal, however, remains the same -- to eliminate these horrific weapons as safely and quickly as possible," Steurer said.

Under the international treaty the Senate ratified in 1997, the United States and other signatories were to get rid of all their chemical weapons by April 29, 2007.

American officials have long said the 2007 date would not be met, and Rumsfeld said in his letters Monday that the United States will ask for a formal extension to April 29, 2012, the last date allowed under the accord.

"I have determined that the United States will not be able to meet even the extended destruction deadline," the secretary wrote to Sen. John Warner, R-Va., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.

"We have encountered and overcome many challenges while eliminating our nation's chemical weapons in a manner that protects the workers, the public, and the environment," Rumsfeld said. "The department will continue working diligently to minimize the time to complete destruction without sacrificing safety and security. We will also continue requesting resources needed to complete destruction as close to April 2012 as practicable."

Calls to the offices of Warner and Hunter were not returned.

At a Senate hearing on the issue last year, Ambassador Donald Mahley, deputy assistant secretary of state in the Bureau of Arms Control, said other nations could use the U.S. failure to meet the deadline as an excuse to slow their own chemical weapons destruction programs or to ignore the treaty.

The United States also could lose its leverage in pressing other nations, especially Russia, to continue weapons destruction efforts, he said.

Mahley said Russia is the only other nation with chemical weapons that was not likely to meet the 2012 deadline.

Reporter James R. Carroll can be reached at (202) 906-8141.