Chemical Weapons Working Group
PO Box 467 Berea, KY 40403
(606) 986-0868 fax: (606) 986-2695
kefwilli@acs.eku.edu www.cwwg.org
for more information contact:
Craig Williams: 606-986-7565
for immediate release: Friday July 30, 1999
MONEY FOR TESTING ALL SIX INCINERATION ALTERNATIVES
IDENTIFIED IN PENTAGON INVESTIGATION OF
CHEMICAL WEAPONS DISPOSAL PROGRAM
Activists hail decision to test all options; say audit proves Army lied about funding
On July 27, 1999, a year to the day from when contracts were awarded to test only three
alternatives to the Army's incineration technology for chemical weapons disposal, the Pentagon
announced it would direct the Army to test the remaining three non-incineration technologies.
In July 1998 the Army's top official in the chemical weapons disposal program, Deputy Assistant
Secretary of the Army, Ted Prociv, claimed funds were not available to demonstrate all six
alternative technologies that had been identified by the Congressionally-mandated Assembled
Chemical Weapons Assessment (ACWA) program. $25 million was needed in 1998 to ensure
demonstration of all six technologies. Prociv's position, which he maintained in briefings to
Congress and in statements to the public and the press, forced the elimination of three technologies
from the testing process. "The money's just not there," Prociv stated repeatedly.
However, a Pentagon Comptroller's report released yesterday paints a very different picture.
According to the report, "Information provided by the Department of the Army and the Defense
Finance and Accounting Service indicated that as of February 1999, approximately
$1 billion of current and prior years funds were unexpended."
The report also states, "The Department has agreed to conduct evaluations of the three additional
alternative technologies. This will require an additional $40 Million..."
"This proves our accusation of the misrepresentation of available funds was correct," said Craig
Williams, spokesperson for the Chemical Weapons Working Group (CWWG), a national coalition
which advocates non-incineration technologies for chemical weapons disposal. "All these tests
could have been funded last year as Congress intended," said Williams, "but Army officials are so
wedded to incineration that they lied in order to limit the number of alternatives to be
demonstrated." The CWWG called for Prociv's resignation earlier this year after an internal
Pentagon memo accused the chemical disposal program of "hiding money" from the alternative
technologies program. Prociv has said he will not step down.
"We are very pleased that all non-incineration disposal options will now be tested," said Williams.
"It is our mission to ensure that the safest approach be used to dispose of these weapons in all the
communities where they are stored."
Williams pointed out that the cost of doing three demonstrations now is $40 million, as opposed to
the $25 million it would have cost if the demonstrations had been done together last summer. This
$15 million increase is due to the fact that test sites used for the previous demonstrations have to be
geared back up, support personnel re-assigned, and environmental documents re-done. "It's what
I call the $15 million penalty for lying," said Williams. "It's just too bad the taxpayers are the ones
who have to pay for the Army's misdeeds."
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