Published: November 15 , 2007

OUR VIEW
Constant pressure needed to insure weapons' disposal

Congress has approved a defense spending bill that includes a 2017 deadline for destroying stockpiles of chemical weapons stored at the Blue Grass Army Depot in Madison County. While that still is five years after an international treaty signed by the U.S. and 180 other nations mandates the destruction of banned chemical weapons, it is six years earlier than the 2025 date the Pentagon has established for destroying the weapons stored far below the ground at the depot.

U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell deserves much ofthe credit to the new 10-year deadline. He has used his clout as Senate minority leader to pressure the Department of Defense and the Bush administration to cease their foot-dragging ondestroying the weapons. The new defense appropriations bill also calls for chemical weapons stored in Colorado, Oregon, Utah, Arkansas, Alabama and Indiana to be destroyed within 10 years.

Craig Williams, director of the Berea-based watchdog Chemical Weapons Working Group, said he's confident the Pentagon can meet the 2017 deadline.

Williams finds it ironic that at the same time the nation is spending billions fighting a war in Iraq that was started in part because Iraq was thought to have chemical and other weapons of mass destruction that were never found, the Pentagon and the Bush administration have been in no hurry to destroy the chemical weapons it has stored in this country.

"It's our responsibility to spend money on getting rid of the risks that are real around these types of weapons," Williams said. "And we're sitting on a pile of them right here."

The Blue Grass depot stores 523 tons of nerve and blister agents in rockets and projectiles. The weapons there and at sites in Colorado and Indiana are being destroyed through chemical neutralization, followed by a secondary treatment on-site. Weapons stored at the other sites are being destroyed through incineration - a method originally proposed for Blue Grass.

Site preparation for the disposal at Blue Grass is under way, and construction of the main demilitarization building will begin early next year. While the 2017 deadline can be met, experience tells us that even with the new law constant pressure must continue to keep the disposal of these weapons on target.