SENATE BUDGET COMMITTEE REPORT
URGES CHEMICAL WEAPONS DISPOSAL IN KENTUCKY AND COLORADO - CALLS PENTAGON
FUNDING FREEZE "ESPECIALLY TROUBLING"
Strong Chemical Demilitarization Language in
Report Follows Grilling of Deputy Sec. Defense Wolfowitz at March Budget Hearing
The annual report of the U.S Senate Budget Committee
will incorporate language that emphatically tells the Pentagon to stop studying
alternatives, free appropriated funds and proceed with chemical weapons disposal
projects in Kentucky and Colorado.
The report's forceful admonishments on chemical demilitarization,
authored by Senators Jim Bunning (KY) and Wayne Allard (CO), decry the Pentagon's
present delay tactics in Kentucky and Colorado and warn against continuing
those tactics: "The Department's actions are especially troubling because
the Department refuses to spend previously appropriated funds for those projects.
The Department should stop the needless study of alternative demilitarization
technologies, complete the design process for both sites, and include sufficient
funds in future budgets to fully fund those facilities."
The Senators' report language comes on the heels of
a heated discussion at a March 1 Budget Committee Hearing with Deputy Secretary
of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, during which Sen. Allard accused the Pentagon of
deceiving residents in both states. "Some of the costs we're considering here
are due to faults in the demilitarization project itself, the repeated delays
and its lack of focus. The people of Pueblo, Colorado, and Kentucky have
been misled," Allard said.
At the same hearing, Sen. Bunning asked Wolfowitz,
"Do you know how long we've been researching the destruction of those weapons?
And even the money we appropriated in the last DOD budgets, over the last
one, two, three years, you want to use it for other purposes now."
Sen. Bunning followed up by urging the Deputy Secretary
to visit Kentucky, "I would invite you to come with me to the Bluegrass
Army Depot and walk through it," he said. "And you would understand
how urgent it is to get rid of those things properly,"
"Let's do that," Wolfowitz responded. No visit has
been scheduled to date.
Two weeks prior to the Budget Hearing, Secretary of
State Condoleeza Rice stated her commitment to disposing of the U.S. stockpile
of chemical weapons by the Treaty deadline of 2012. However the budget cuts
proposed by the Pentagon will make this impossible.
"It's time for State and Defense to get on the same
page," said CWWG Director, Craig Williams. "Obviously, you can't cut funds
and expect to meet specific deadlines. The high level of attention being
given this problem, as a result of the efforts of Senators Bunning and Allard,
will hopefully help break the unnecessary logjam in chemical weapons disposal
in Kentucky and Colorado."
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Copies of the Budget Committee Report language
on chemical weapons is available from the CWWG.
