Defense Environment Alert 01/24/06

NEW DOD CHEM DEMIL CHIEF TOUTED AS 'GOOD BRIDGE' TO CONGRESS

Environmental and citizen activists are lauding the Bush administration's recent appointment of a long-time House staffer on chemical demilitarization issues to oversee the Defense Department's chemical weapons destruction programs, following the suspension last year of previous program administrator Patrick Wakefield. The appointment is in concert with a defense secretary-directed reorganization of the nuclear, chemical and biological defense programs office.

Jean Reed, a House Armed Services Committee (HASC) staffer who worked on chemical demilitarization and threat reduction for 15 years, was named DOD special assistant for chemical and biological defense and chemical demilitarization programs Jan. 3. He assumes many of the same duties assigned to Wakefield, who was deputy assistant to the Secretary of Defense for chemical demilitarization and counterproliferation.

Reed's new position was created after Dale Klein, who heads DOD's nuclear, chemical and biological defense programs, revamped his organization "to be more efficient and effective" in response to a directive from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to streamline programs combating weapons of mass destruction, according to a DOD spokeswoman. The spokeswoman did not provide details on what Reed's responsibilities would be or whether they would differ from Wakefield's.

Environmental and citizen activists and others are pleased with the appointment of Reed, calling him candid, well-informed and a "good bridge" to Congress. In contrast, Wakefield's tenure was marked by criticism from environmentalists and citizen groups that he did not fairly consider alternatives to incineration of chemical weapons.

Wakefield was put on administrative leave in August 2005 after an internal investigation of his conduct. He is still awaiting judgment on an appeal to be given a different job at DOD, according to a citizen group source.

Wakefield is no longer assigned to Klein's office, the DOD spokeswoman says. Reed's position at HASC gave him responsibility for overseeing annual funding levels for the $1 billion-plus chemical destruction program, arranging expert testimony for the committee on the controversial program and drafting questions for committee members, along with a host of other duties. "He's followed the chemical demilitarization program for the last 15 years," a former colleague from the committee says. "He authorized funds and programmatic changes in the bills. It was his baby." He's "the classic selfless, dedicated public servant. He's a very conscientious and meticulous guy, very knowledgeable," the source says.

A source with the Chemical Weapons Working Group (CWWG), a coalition of citizen organizations that advocates clean and safe disposal of chemical weapons, calls Reed's appointment "a positive step in achieving the objectives under the Chemical Weapons Convention" and calls Reed "intelligent and candid."

The central issue in negotiating with DOD, according to the source, is being able to trust that military officials will do what they say. "If [Reed] says 'I'm going to do A, B and C,' when he hangs up the phone he'll do A, B and C," the source says. "We could always at least sit across the table, and we may not get what we want but we'd move forward and reach a decision everyone understood. That is so valuable in this instance."

A source with Global Green USA, which advocates threat reduction and the nonproliferation of weapons worldwide, concurs with the CWWG assessment. Reed is "very informed on congressional affairs" and will "be a good bridge between the Bush administration, the congressional committees and cooperative threat reduction" workers in government, the source says. "I'm pretty optimistic on him filling that role."

The source stresses that "in the weapons destruction community people don't always agree on the means to the end" of weapons elimination, but that Reed is especially well-informed on a variety of viewpoints and "no one's going to pull the wool over his eyes."

Among Reed's challenges will be facing a 2012 international treaty deadline for destroying the country's stockpiled chemical weapons and addressing the long-contested issue of incineration, which the Army is using at several sites to destroy the country's stockpiled chemical weapons. Critics have challenged the Army's use of the technology, saying it pollutes the air and that safer and more environmentally friendly alternatives are available.

Wakefield was an incineration proponent, according to the CWWG source, who says the ousted official was the author of an ultimately unsuccessful resolution to move DOD's Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives (ACWA) program, created by Congress in 1997 to find alternative destruction methods to chemical weapons burning, from oversight under the Office of the Secretary of Defense to the Army's elimination of chemical weapons program (ECW).

The CWWG source says ECW has always been hostile to ACWA!s approach and that if the move had gone through, ACWA's effectiveness "would have been sacrificed in favor of incineration."