What exactly are the people in charge of chemical demilitarization at the Army doing these days? Certainly not their job, that’s clear.What else is clear is that the only work the decision-makers in Washington have been doing lately is hatching a plot to try to ambush the Calhoun County Commission and the local emergency management agency with a public relations ploy.
It is the height of arrogance, it is irresponsible and it shows that the people who are in charge of the program in Washington have their priorities about as confused as they could possibly be.
Someone, maybe several people, ought to take his or her lack of talents elsewhere.
Here’s the problem: An internal email exchange between top Army personnel dealing with chemical demilitarization found its way to the press at week’s end. The exchange, first revealed by the Birmingham News’ Washington correspondent, left no doubt the Army intended to set local officials up for a very bad PR job.
The scheme called for the Army to hold a number of exercises designed to prepare for a possible accident or incident at the Anniston Army Depot. When the local EMA and County Commission would refuse to cooperate (what the Army anticipated them doing) the Army would then launch into a frontal public relations assault.
Pentagon employee Larry Skelly described the plan in his e-mail as an attempt to “take the offensive in Alabama and become proactive rather that reactive to the negative media coverage the last year.”
Mr. Skelly is mighty busy conjuring up ways to slam the local EMA and the County Commission. If he and his colleagues turned all that energy and attention into solving the problems of emergency preparedness and the existing stockpile maybe we could rid ourselves of the problem.
But this isn’t just about Mr. Skelly, this is about a new culture that seems to have crept into the Washington side of this operation. Skelly’s email exchange is with Russell Shearer, an assistant to the director of the chemical demilitarization program, Assistant Secretary of the Army Mario Fiori.
It is clear in the exchange that all three men know about and approve of the scheme. So it isn’t just a lone bureaucrat who is engaging more of his time and energy in whacking local authorities than getting rid of the deadly nerve agent stockpile, but the leadership of the organization.
That, good people of Anniston, stinks to high heaven and demands that changes be made high up if this community is to regain the respect of the chemical demilitarization leadership.
This is a serious turn of events, but it is just the latest. A look over the past few weeks and months gives one the impression that Mr. Fiori has the attitude that the community is not nearly as important as the program.
Note that not long ago we learned that again the Washington crowd was pushing a new plan for the disposal of the stockpile, even though it actually slightly increased the risk to the community. The word from Washington was that the changes were needed because it would eliminate the stockpile a few months sooner.
That was and remains a bad idea, one that is not supported by this community, but for some odd reason — perhaps we are again in the public relations realm again — is championed by a cluster of apparent eggheads in the head office.
As long as the stockpile sits there it poses a danger to this community. It must be destroyed and the best way to do that is by proven incineration methods. The Army certainly does not need to ambush the local authorities to get that point across.
What it does need to do, however, is to start involving itself in a good faith dialogue with the community and our leaders.
The truth can make for some good public relations.
