Chemical weapons demobilization meets new hurdles.

• Author: Pappalardo, Joe
• Position: HOMELAND SECURITY

THE DEFENSE DEPARTMENT'S troubled effort to neutralize its stock of chemical weapons is facing more turmoil, caused in part by homeland security considerations, according to officials at a recent congressional hearing.

The military, already decades behind schedule and tens of billions dollars above budget, is facing sharp criticism over its choice of methods in neutralizing chemical agents, the decision to use off-site facilities and its plan to dump sanitized waste from the process into the Delaware River.

"I understand past delays have been caused by modified destruction rates, new environmental regulations, worse-than-expected stockpile conditions and unanticipated emergency preparedness requirements," said Rep. Marty Meehan, D-Mass., ranking minority member on the subcommittee on terrorism and unconventional threats of the House Armed Services Committee. "But I also know some of the delay has been self-imposed by the Defense Department."

With security priorities changing after September 2001, the Pentagon decided to accelerate the breakdown of pure chemical agents, said Dale Klein, assistant to the secretary of defense for nuclear, chemical and biological programs.

That refocusing entailed a shift in funding away from building new facilities in Pueblo, Colo., and Bluegrass, Ky., in favor of getting work done at the existing plants in Utah, Alabama, Oregon, Hawaii and Arkansas, and starting operations in Indiana.

"If you're asking if we know how we're going to proceed, we don't," Klein responded to questions about Pueblo's future from Rep. Joel Hefley, R-Colo. "I understand the frustration. We have it, too."

Klein listed the program's achievements, including the strong safety records of the plants, the operation of six chemical weapons sites by the middle of this year and the destruction of 36 percent of the stockpile. By March, 11.2 tons of chemical agents in the arsenal had been destroyed. In April, the facility at Pine Bluff, Ark., began dismantling sarin-tipped warheads.

Driven by requirements of the Chemical Weapons Convention Treaty, the program to break down the chemical weapons stockpile began in 1986. Projections pictured a $2 billion, 10-year effort. Current estimates, however, place the cost of a worst-case scenario at about $35 billion, with a timeline that extends past 2020.

Major treaty milestones have been missed, and although the United States has destroyed more chemical weapons than all other signers combined, by 2004...