Retreating from a political firestorm of its own making, the Pentagon now plans to get chemical weapons disposal back on track in Kentucky and Colorado.

The decision to thaw funding and return to the earlier disposal timetable is a welcome development.

So is the Pentagon's decision to stop talking up the ludicrous idea of transporting chemical weapons across the country for disposal.

The good news came in a Defense Department memo that was released, typically enough, not by the Defense Department but by the Berea-based Chemical Weapons Working Group, which has become a more trustworthy source of information than the government when it comes to WMD-at-home.

More good news: Sen. Mitch McConnell isn't dropping his efforts to put into law a requirement that the Pentagon release money appropriated for weapons disposal in Madison County and Pueblo, Colo., and make regular progress reports to Congress.

As Kentuckians have learned from painful experience, the Defense Department can be relied on to thwart any alternative but the unacceptable one of incinerating deadly poisons and aging rockets, even though neutralization will be safer and cheaper.

McConnell is smart to keep pushing his amendment. We've breathed a sigh of relief before when the project finally seemed to be on track only to be burned again by the Defense Department's backpedaling.

When it comes to the Pentagon and chemical weapons disposal, the only sensible policy is a variation on a Reagan maxim: Don't trust. And verify.