Congress Sets Chemical Weapons Disposal Deadline

The fiscal 2008 defense funding bill approved last week in Congress requires the U.S. Defense Department to finish chemical weapons disposal by 2017, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Oct. 25).

The Pentagon has previously indicated that work would not be completed before 2023.  The Chemical Weapons Convention requires the United States to eliminate its chemical arsenal by 2012.

“It is vitally important that we keep the pressure on the Department of Defense to get the job done,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

McConnell’s home state houses the Blue Grass Army Depot, one of two chemical arsenal storage sites where construction has yet to begin on a weapons disposal facility.  The other is the Pueblo Chemical Depot in Colorado. 

Construction is expected to begin in early 2008 of a plant that would chemically neutralize 523 tons of nerve and blister agents contained in munitions at Blue Grass, McConnell said.

Chemical weapons elimination has finished at two U.S. sites and is under way at depots in Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Utah and Oregon.

One observer said he believes the new deadline gives the Pentagon enough time to finish the job, AP reported.

“Eliminating the risk that is posed to our own citizens by our own weapons of mass destruction has to be a No. 1 priority,” said Craig Williams, head of the Chemical Weapons Working Group (Bruce Schreiner, Associated Press I/Lexington Herald-Leader, Nov. 10).

The defense bill provides $142 million for preparations of the Pueblo disposal facility, AP reported Saturday.  More than 2,600 tons of mustard agent is stored at the depot.

It was not immediately known when President George W. Bush might sign the legislation (Associated Press II/FOX 31, Nov. 10).

The bill includes $79 million in extra funding for preparations of the Blue Grass and Pueblo disposal plants, the Richmond, Ky., Register reported (Ronica Shannon, Richmond Register, Nov. 9).

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