Delay at the depot

It really is an astonishing story.

Back in the 1980s, the cost of eliminating the American military's 31,500-ton chemical arsenal was predicted to be about $2 billion. Today the estimate has reached $32 billion, and the total will just keep going up.

That's because the Pentagon has extended its timeline to destroy aging chemical weapons, including those stored in Central Kentucky, until 2023 -- 11 years later than previously planned.

About 500 tons of nerve gas and mustard gas are stored in rockets at the Blue Grass Army Depot near Richmond.

Had local residents agreed to incineration, much or all of the work might have been done by now. But they fought it furiously in favor of developing a newer, presumably safer technology.

Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., joined them, has been a frequent critic of the Pentagon's effort and now condemns the military for "again backsliding on its commitment."

He calls the new projections "simply unacceptable" and warns they would "subject the people living near (stockpiles) to the dangers of chemical weapons until well into the 2020s."

This must be a huge embarrassment to Sen. McConnell, who thought he had boxed in the Defense Department, at least legislatively. More recently, he was elected to lead the Senate's GOP minority, which should have made Defense even more wary of thwarting him.

What's going on?

Concerned local folks should ask Sen. McConnell how much faster the work would have been done had adequate money been available to address this and other true homeland security risks.

The official goal was to eliminate these stockpiles by 2012 or "soon thereafter," the deadline set by the international Chemical Weapons Convention. But now it's clear that won't happen.

Pentagon spokesman Chris Isleib said delays have been caused by technological challenges, regulatory problems and safety and security concerns. He insisted that the Iraq war has not taken money away from the disposal effort.

The fact is, however, that the federal budget could have handled both the Iraq war and such legitimate anti-terror initiatives at home if it hadn't been for a) the tax cuts for the already rich, b) the fabulously expensive profligacies Congress has indulged and c) its pork-barrel, feel-good approach to homeland defense.

It could have been done if the President and Republicans such as Sen. McConnell had asked the American people to mobilize and sacrifice in order to pay for war abroad and defense here.

If there's not a safe technology or enough money to keep the weapons disposal at Blue Grass Army Depot on schedule, it's because Sen. McConnell and his colleagues have been too busy squandering the nation's resources and will on less deserving but more politically useful spending.