ACWA Fraud Claimed by Senator McConnell
by: mjbrod_1 3057 of 3058
Some of you may have already seen this, but I thought it might be of some interest to those that haven't.
FYI : Today Senator McConnell (R-KY) read the following into the Record prior to the approval of the Defense Appropriations Bill:
STATEMENT OF SENATOR MITCH McCONNELL REGARDING CHEMICAL DEMILITARIZATION -
ASSEMBLED CHEMICAL WEAPONS ASSESSMENT
June 8, 1999
Mr. President, I rise today to address the issue of Chemical Weapons Demilitarization. I do so in order to point out that the Department of Defense has consistently ignored Congressional directive and intent.
In 1996, I offered and the Senate accepted an amendment which directed the Army to identify and demonstrate technologies other than baseline incineration which could be utilized in the destruction of America's chemical weapons stockpile. This program, which came to be known as the Assembled Chemical Weapons Assessment, or ACWA, enjoyed tremendous inititial success. Through the involvement of the DoD, the Army, technology providers and citizens advocacy groups -- disparate interests, indeed -- agreement was reached on how the process should proceed as well as the criteria for success. It is also critical to point out that one area of consensus was that the timely destruction of the stockpiles remained a top priority. Nobody involved in this process advocates unnecessary delay in efforts to comply with the Chemical Weapons Convention 2007 deadline. Certainly, I never viewed my efforts as anything other than a safeguard to ensure that once the destruction of the stockpile located in Kentucky began, only the safest method available was utilized.
Unfortunately, this is where the good news ends.
After rigorous evaluation and discussions, the decision was announced that six separate methods met the technological criteria necessary in order to be tested as alternatives to baseline incineration. These six were the only proposals of the almost 20 originally submitted for consideration which were
deemed capable of producing safer methods. Unfortunately the Army and the Department of Defense made the decision to move forward and evaluate only three of the qualified technologies, leaving three untested. Further, this decision was made not on the basis of what was technologically feasible, but solely on the basis on what was cost-efficient. Not in the interests of finding the safest manner available to destroy the weapons, but on satisfying the minimum requirements so that the incineration could continue
regardless of the results of the testing.
To help ease this budget difficulty, I offered and the Senate accepted, an amendment to the FY99 Department of Defense Appropriations Bill which gave the Secretary of Defense the Authority to reprogram up to $25 million in order to fully test each of the technologies which met the criteria for selection as potential alternatives to incineration. This provision was included in the final version of the Defense bill, andwas eventually signed into law.
second half follows
|
