Chemical Weapons Working Group
P.O. Box 467
Berea, Kentucky 40403
(606) 986-7565 (606) 986-2695 (fax)
kefwilli@acs.eku.edu www.cwwg.org
for more information contact:
Craig Williams
(606) 986-7565
for immediate release: Tuesday, July 20, 1999
SENATORS CALL FOR GAO INVESTIGATION OF
CHEMICAL STOCKPILE DISPOSAL PROGRAM
Amid charges of hiding money from developing alternative technologies; a half
dozen legal challenges; accusations of covering up agent releases; and calls for the
resignation of the Program's top Official: Senate Appropriators call for an in depth
investigation of this programs safety, management, oversight and accountability
Senate Appropriations Foreign Operations Committee Chair, Mitch McConnell
(R-KY), along with Senate Appropriations Defense Committee Chairman, Ted
Stevens (R-AK), called for a full investigation by the U.S. General Accounting
Office (GAO) into the safety, management, oversight and fiscal accountability
of the Army's program designed to destroy the United States stockpile of chemical
weapons.
In a letter delivered to the Comptroller General of the GAO, the Senators said,
"We are concerned that the Department of Defense has failed to adequately
implement the national strategy [and] to account for the funds appropriated by
Congress...."
At a press conference held on Capital Hill this morning, Senator McConnell
renewed his call for fully exploring all viable alternatives to incineration for
disposal of these lethal compounds. McConnell stated he "would not allow a
billowing cloud of toxic gas to waft across the playgrounds of Madison
County."
The Chemical Stockpile Disposal Program has been controversial since its
conception in 1984 when the Army announced it planned to incinerate
stockpiles of nerve and blister agents stored in eight communities across the
country and on Kalama Island in the Pacific.
In 1985, the Army told Congress it would cost $1.7 billion and take until 1994
to destroy the entire U.S. stockpile. The current price tag is between $15 and
$16 billion with the Army hoping for completion by the timetable provided for
in the recently ratified Chemical Weapons Convention. The Convention
deadline is April 2007 with a one-time five-year extension allowed, moving the
deadline to April 2012.
In today's letter to the GAO, Senators Stevens and McConnell wrote, "From
1993 to date, Congress has appropriated $4.5 billion for costs associated with
this national effort" and "...less than 10% of the stockpile has been destroyed
and America's program is struggling to meet its schedule."
The Army's preferred technology, incineration, has been opposed on
environmental and public health grounds since it's announcement in 1984.
The Army's two "operational" incinerators have been plagued with
problems resulting in major shutdowns and agent releases.
In 1993 a directive by Congress to look for alternatives to incineration resulted
in two stockpile sites switching to other approaches. The Army claimed that
only these sites could abandon incineration as they had agents in bulk
containers and stored no chemical agent in weapons.
However, in 1997 Congress directed the Army to identify and demonstrate
alternative approaches for the sites which stored agent in munitions. This
effort resulted in the identification of six viable non-incineration approaches.
These six were slated to be demonstrated, but the Army suddenly claimed they
lacked the funds to test all six and proceeded with only three.
Following months of accusations from community groups that the Army was
deliberately hiding money to prevent the demonstration of all six viable
technologies, an internal Pentagon memorandum surfaced indicating gross
mismanagement which the House Appropriation Committee recently called
"....unique and questionable budget execution actions." Preceding this, the
Senate Appropriations Committee noted that rather than lacking the $25
million needed to test all six alternatives, the incineration Program Manager's
Office was sitting on more than $200 million in just one account. More recent
documents indicate that figure could be as high as $700 million.
Today's action will expose what Craig Williams, spokesperson for the CWWG
calls "a program which is in dire need of honest leadership with the integrity
and accountability that's long been missing."
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