Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you very much, Colonel Fiala, and if I could just ask this third and final panel if they would allow us to recess for about 35 minutes, give you a chance to stand up and move around. We'll have five consecutive votes on the floor, and then we will come back for questioning.

OK. Great. Thank you. So the committee is in recess for about 35 minutes.

[Recess.]

Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you for being so patient. I'm going to reconvene our hearing, and we'll commence with our questioning. I thank the panel for being here for the entire time for their testimony.

I will start off, Dr. Ladner; with you, since you were the first one to testify. Thank you for being here, first of all. I want to point out, as you are aware, Dr. Ladner, that the subcommittee did invite Donald Myers to this hearing, and Donald Myers is the vice president for finance and treasurer of the American University.

Mr. LADNER. That's right.

Mrs. MORELLA. And you're aware during the relevant period we're discussing, 1986 to the present, Donald Myers held this position at American University. At this time, the invitation to Dr. Donald Myers to appear at this hearing will be submitted for the record.

And you're aware that the subcommittee was informed by letter from David Taylor, your chief of staff, dated July 25, 2001, that Donald Myers was unable to attend because of illness?

Mr. LADNER. That's right.

Mrs. MORELLA. And I'm going to submit the letter from David Taylor for the record.

The subcommittee also sent a letter to David Taylor inquiring when Vice President Donald Myers would be available to give testimony under oath. I think you're probably aware of that.

Mr. LADNER. I am.

Mrs. MORELLA. For the record, I am going to submit the letter for the record.

I want to during my period of time then switch over to General Walker. General Walker, let's go to the bottom line first. Why didn't the Army feel it was necessary to inform the public that there might be munitions buried under the University in the Spring Valley area?

General WALKER. Madam Chairman, the situation-I realize it was my decision that's under close scrutiny here, but based on the evidence that we had at that time and the many projects that we were dealing with throughout the country, it didn't show that this site warranted additional study.

However, I always at any site left the situation open that if we found something, or new information, we would return. I did not find sufficient evidence at that time to move forward with and also did not see the need to disclose that. We made a decision that there wasn't enough evidence to go forward. We had other sites that we're dealing with, literally thousands, and all these, and Spring Valley as well, I was very concerned about the health and welfare. We had a particular site where two young children had been killed. We had several sites where we were contaminating the

drinking waters of communities, where we weren't giving bottled water out, and then making arrangements for permanent hookup of safe water supplies.

So this fit into a situation where there were many projects out there, and this one did not warrant the evidence. Had we had hard evidence there had been burial there and it was very clear, we would have been there with a thorough investigation.

Mrs. MORELLA. Who did make the ultimate decision regarding the U.S. Government's role in the Spring Valley, once American University asked for your help in 1986? How high up did the matter go? Did it go to the White House?

General WALKER. No. This was

Mrs. MORELLA. Defense Secretary?

General WALKER. Well, you always hate to come back and have a review of your decisions and find out that they were not accurate. I was the one that made the decision. I was the one that worked with American University. I was the one that had made the decision, on the evidence that I had, not to go forward. People were informed. My supervisors were informed. But I was in charge of the environmental programs and the occupational health programs in the Army and safety programs, and so I made that decision.

Mrs. MORELLA. In reading that October 29, 1986 report by the Army, that was sent to American University, in terms of semantics it seems to take pains to discredit any contemporary evidence that munitions were buried in Spring Valley. In fact, it even says we could not disprove the possibility that some materials remain buried on or near the campus of American University. And then, additionally, one of the main conclusions was the source that says that munitions were buried is historically suspect, and yet the Army's analysis of the source, two American University newspaper-Courier-articles from 1921 focus on disproving minor details of the reports, like the munitions buried, the style of writing, rather than the big-picture question of whether or not weapons were indeed buried there.

We wonder whether the Army was ever really interested in finding out the truth about buried munitions.

General WALKER. Madam Chairman, we were very concerned at the time when I had the program of looking and trying to ascertain where all those that might pose threats of health and safety to individuals might be, and we operated-we have the program. We actually-after 1986, we expanded the program because we knew that it was too large for the former used sites and current active sites on the installations, but we were quite concerned about every area and this was one of many. We made a judgment call, or I made a judgment call. It turned out by 1993 that it was proven that there were munitions there. It was one of those judgments that you make and then you find out that it was not that sound. But the Army still admitted that they-in 1993 when we found the munitions there, we immediately stepped forward, moved to remove them, worked with the D.C. government, the Army-or the Environmental Protection Agency and all those concerned, to make sure that we maintained the health and safety of the people in the

area.

Mrs. MORELLA. Did the Army or the U.S. Government conduct its own archival review of military activities on the AU campus, and if so, were you ever denied any access to material because it was deemed classified?

General WALKER. No. I had a security clearance, Madam Chairman. I didn't feel that I was denied any information. We had two studies that were important to this effort. And in the review, we had the U.S. Army Toxic and Hazardous Materials Agency, which is now named the Army Environmental Center, and then we had the EPIC report that was referred to earlier by the EPA representative.

Mrs. MORELLA. Actually, I guess what you're saying to me, General Walker, is that you made a decision but you were incorrect in making the decision?

General WALKER. I made the decision on the information that I had which later basically was inadequate, yes.

Mrs. MORELLA. Did you make it alone, make the decision alone? General WALKER. I had people that reviewed the material who were there, but I was the one responsible for making the decision. Mrs. MORELLA. OK. I'll get back in on the next round. Ms. Norton.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Mrs. Morella. Mr. Reardon. Mr. REARDON. Yes, ma'am?

Ms. NORTON. I'm looking at your testimony, and you try to distinguish the charts. You say it is charts from which the conclusion was drawn, that the Agency believed that this is the sticking point here the 1986 finding, as it were, that came from these charts, that the Army should have formally notified local authorities I'm quoting from your testimony now-and third parties in 1986 of potential existence of buried chemicals.

Then you go on to say that ultimately the auditors performed additional work—and here I'm quoting again—discussed the laws and regulations in effect in 1986 with Agency legal counsel and command subject matter experts. And that on the basis of those discussions, you testified the Army had no obligation to formally notify local authorities or third parties, because at that time the available evidence of buried chemical weapons at Spring Valley was at best inconclusive.

Is it your testimony that in order to do further investigation, one has to already have conclusive evidence of contaminants and that there was no obligation, given the indications here, to seek further evidence of contaminants?

Mr. KIEFER. Let me address it, please. There's a couple of issues here. One, we were chartered to do a review of the potential existence of chemical weapons, not contaminants.

Ms. NORTON. Let's say chemical weapons then.

Mr. KIEFER. The review on June 6th when we had our entrance conference, we had charts that were the conclusion was based on the premise that we had knowledge of a potential chemical weapons storage site. Based on that information, we concluded that notification should be made. Subsequent review and talking with the subject matter experts and our legal counsel, there were no requirements to report the potential of chemical weapons

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