Defense Environment Alert
September 9, 2003

GAO: CHEMICAL WEAPONS DISPOSAL PROGRAM 'CONTINUES TO FLOUNDER'

The Pentagon's chemical demilitarization program "continues to flounder" -- despite several reorganizations of its complex structure -- and continues to face increasing costs and schedule delays, the General Accounting Office (GAO) finds in a new report. GAO is recommending that the Defense Department and the Army develop an overall strategy and implementation plan for the program, as well as employ a risk management approach that would anticipate potential problems for the program rather than continuing in crisis mode.

DOD is concurring with the recommendations, saying it is in the initial stages of developing an overall strategy and implementation plan that it will complete in fiscal year 2004. Additionally, DOD says an Army agency is in the process of reviewing several components of a risk management approach.

The Sept. 5 report, Chemical Weapons: Sustained Leadership, Along With Key Strategic Management Tools, Is Needed to Guide DOD's Destruction Program, is the just the latest GAO study since the mid- 1990s to find shortcomings with the chemical demilitarization program. The House mandated the GAO investigation in its report plan to guide the program and monitor its progress, GAO says. The report is particularly critical of the program's reliance on acquisition guidance because the program has non-acquisition elements, and it notes that all documents GAO reviewed were out of date and did not reflect changes to the program. While the Army and DOD say CMA is developing an updated strategy, GAO says a draft version is still not comprehensive because it fails to address all the components of the program, such as emergency preparedness.

Additionally, the chemical demilitarization program lacks a risk management plan. The Army drafted one in June 2000, but it never formally approved or implemented the plan, the report says, adding that DOD and Army officials have given several reasons for not having such a plan.

"A DOD official indicated that the approach that has been used to address program problems has been crisis management, which has forced DOD to react to issues rather than control them," the report says. "The deputy program manager stated that the program's focus has been on managing individual sites by implementing initiatives to improve contractor performance as it relates to safety, schedule, and cost. The official also said that establishing a formal, integrated risk management plan has not been a priority." Another program official told GAO the infrastructure is in place to finalize such a plan by October, when CMA takes over official leadership of the program. But GAO says the status of this effort is unknown.