Chemical Weapons Working Group, an anti-incinerator organization based in Berea, Ky., said Tuesday it believes more than $400 million in funding has been stored by the DOD. The money was appropriated to construct facilities to neutralize chemical weapons in Colorado and Kentucky, it added.

"The Pentagon is trying to conceal the ever-increasing cost of the chemical demilitarization program, particularly at their incineration sites, by impounding funds for neutralizing chemical agents in Colorado and Kentucky," Craig Williams, director of the activist group, charged in an e-mail press release.

"It appears they intend to continue transferring these funds to disposal programs at other sites where costs have soared."

Williams said the result will be greater risk to "certain communities" as well as higher costs to dispose of the weapons in the long run. Also, he predicted, the United States will miss treaty deadlines on destruction of the weapons.

E-mail: bau@desnews.com