RICHMOND - Craig Williams' daughter was not yet born when people in Madison County started battling the Pentagon over how to dispose of chemical weapons at Blue Grass Army Depot.

Yesterday, her newborn son was in the audience for a victory celebration and news conference at a restaurant here.

The news conference was set up mostly to thank U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell for his help.

McConnell led the fight against plans by the military to burn the 523 tons of nerve and mustard agent at the depot.

This year he has fended off Pentagon efforts to delay construction and hold up funding for the plant where the stockpile will be chemically neutralized instead.

The Kentucky Republican, a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, inserted language into the supplemental appropriations bill for the Iraq war. His provision ordered the Pentagon to release money for the plant.

The provision made it through the House-Senate conference committee that reached agreement on the $82 billion bill Tuesday night, he said.

And two days after a blunt letter from McConnell to a Pentagon official, word came that funding would be released.

"That, ladies and gentlemen, is clout," said Williams, director of the Berea-based Chemical Weapons Working Group.

The military probably should never have put the weapons in Madison County, McConnell told a group that included local elected officials and some longtime activists. "We certainly want them gone from your neighborhood."

"This wasn't like the other meetings," fellow environmental activist Peter Hille told Williams afterward. "We're not used to winning."