EDITORIAL FOR MARCH 27, 2005 -- THE TIME HAS COME

Years of work and millions of dollars will come together for a historic event this week at the Pine Bluff Arsenal, as crews begin incinerating 3,850 tons of aging chemical weapons.

Preparations have been generally smooth.

And there's not a lot of public apprehension. Most folks are eager for the deteriorating stockpile to be destroyed and agree with the government's assessment that the weapons pose more of threat being stored.

Controversy and public anger on the eve of incineration have resulted from last-minute actions.

An uproar greeted the U.S. Defense Department's foolish notion of moving chemical weapons from one state to another to save money and time in meeting an international treaty. That's because the proposal flies in the face of years of study that clearly showed moving the weapons was too dangerous and that destruction should be done where the stockpiles are currently stored.

But Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has shown he won't let common sense or facts get in the way of a hare-brained idea.

Also, 15,000 alert radios that were supposed to have been distributed to homes and businesses surrounding the Pine Bluff Arsenal before incineration started are still stored at the county courthouse. There's plenty of fingerpointing going on, but it appears incompetence and poor management are to blame. Government at the federal, state and county levels are involved in this project and it's disappointing that none were able to see that the job got done on time.

Incineration will begin as a contractor gets around to programming the radios.

There is no acceptable excuse for this delay.

Destroying the stockpile at the Pine Bluff Arsenal is a complex and expensive project, but a worthy one. Decades ago, Uncle Sam created a bunch of deadly chemical weapons. Now we know that was the easy part.