Editorial
Posted on Thu, Nov.
30, 2006
Chemical weapons
Pentagon plan to delay disposal courts disaster
The Pentagon wants Americans to pay more to be in danger longer.
In Kentucky and Colorado, that would be the effect of defense spending proposals being readied for Congress.
The geniuses who put together the Iraq war now figure they can lower annual costs by dragging out the elimination of chemical weapons in Madison County and Pueblo.
The problem is that the total cost would rise by $3.3 billion.
The dangers would also multiply. The longer these Cold War relics are stored and the older they get, the greater the likelihood of leaks and chain-reaction explosions.
Defense secretary nominee Robert Gates should picture the unthinkable under the proposed delay: a WMD horror story at the Blue Grass Army Depot near Richmond in 2016 -- the year after the Pentagon's current commitment would eliminate the threat.
The latest plan is a reversal of what Congress ordered and the Pentagon promised to carry out last year. It would also put the United States in violation of international treaty deadlines, which already have been extended.
Groundbreaking and construction of the weapons-neutralization plant in Kentucky has just begun. The seven-year process of eliminating the weapons was supposed to start in 2008.
This latest twist would halve the funding for operations, allowing the facility to run just four days a week instead of seven, said Craig Williams, director of the Berea-based Chemical Weapons Working Group, which obtained Pentagon briefing documents outlining the change of plans.
At that funding rate, ridding Kentucky of WMD would take an additional eight years, extending the end date from 2015 to 2023 and Colorado's from 2016 to 2021.
"Shutting down the plant three days each week while still maintaining management payrolls, security costs and other expenses is absurd. If there were ever an example of 'penny wise, pound foolish' this is it," Williams said.
The money for chemical demilitarization is contained in a $439 billion defense acquisition bill. This measure is separate from the supplemental spending bills that Congress has enacted to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and Hurricane Katrina relief.
In such a huge spending list, there have to be safer places to trim or delay. If the Pentagon won't find them, Congress must.