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CWWG calls for his resignation and four months later: Chem Demil Program's Top Gun Resigns

Links to More Information on Problems Inside the Army's Chem Demil Program

CWWG calls for his resignation and four months later:
Chem Demil Program's Top Gun Resigns

(Excerpted from the May 2000 issue of CWWG's newsletter "Common Sense")

June 16, 1999 CWWG called for the resignation of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Chemical Demilitarization, Dr. Theodore Prociv, for lying about available funds to demonstrate all advanced technologies identified by the Assembled Chemical Weapons Assessment (ACWA) program. Less than four months later, Prociv announced he would be leaving his Army office to accept a position in private industry effective November 1.

CWWG members based their demand for Prociv's resignation on Pentagon Comptroller reports indicating that, contrary to Prociv's claim that the $25 million needed to fulfill the Congressional directive for complete ACWA testing was unavailable, close to $1 billion in the budget hadn't been expended.

In the June letter to Secretary of the Army Louis Caldera, CWWG spokesperson, Craig Williams wrote, "Dr. Prociv has misrepresented the fiscal situation within the Chemical Stockpile Disposal Program to hundreds of citizens, Congressional Staff and his own superiors in an effort to derail the objectives of the Alternative Chemical Weapons Assessment (ACWA) program. Under these circumstances, Mr. Secretary, I respectfully request that you ask for, and insist on, the resignation of Dr. Prociv."

Although Prociv had an opportunity to live up to his contentions to the ACWA representatives and others that he supported the efforts to ensure the safest possible disposal of chemical weapons, it was obvious his real agenda was to keep the incineration program alive while sabotaging the alternatives process."

Early in 1999 the House Defense Appropriations Committee moved to cut the entire budget of Prociv's office for what they called disturbing evidence of "individuals employed by the DoD having visited the Congress with paid consultants to promote the chemical agents and munitions destruction [incineration] program."

Also in 1999, consultants from Prociv's office were sent to Pueblo, Colorado to "pressure" local elected officials to "lobby" Congress to move forward with the incineration program. This activity has been reported to the Pentagon Inspector
General's Office and is under investigation.

Prociv's behavior contradicted his statements to Congress in which he iterated that, "the Chemical Demilitarization Program is pro-destruction; not pro-incineration." His office consistently misrepresented its agenda on technologies and the capability of the incineration program to complete the mission in compliance with the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC).

Now that a major stumbling block to safe disposal is gone, CWWG's hope is that his replacement will allow the best interests of the public and the environment to become the Army's top priority.