US eliminates its chemical weapons of mass destruction

America’s last stocks of mustard gas and nerve agents developed for a chemical weapons confrontation with the Soviet Union in the Cold War are just days away from being destroyed, US officials have confirmed. It is one of the ironies of history that as the US, Russia and China develop more advanced nuclear missiles in a new arms race, an entire category of weapons of mass destruction are close to being eliminated. Russia completed its destruction of nearly 40,000 tons of chemical weapons in September, 2017, with the help of US technology. President Putin at the time criticised the US for delaying its own destruction programme until 2023. However, provided the final stocks are destroyed as planned next month at a plant in Kentucky, the US will be fully compliant with the chemical weapons convention treaty which was signed by 193 countries in 1993 and came into force in 1997. China declared small-scale chemical warfare agent production facilities in 1997 which have since been verifiably destroyed. About 700,000 chemical munitions were abandoned by Japanese troops in China during the Second World War. A Japanese team under Chinese supervision removed and destroyed the munitions. In the 1980s America’s national chemical weapons stockpile consisted of 30,610 tons of deadly chemicals, including sarin and VX nerve agents, exposure to which can cause death in minutes. One drop of VX on the skin can be fatal. With 3,136.6 tons of the deadly agents left to destroy, two US army depots in Colorado and Kentucky had the task of completing the destruction programme. The Pueblo chemical agent-destruction plant in Colorado eliminated the last 2,613.2 tons of agents held at the depot at the end of last week. The mustard agent was neutralised through a biological process and 780,000 chemical weapons projectiles and mortar rounds were blown up. The Blue Grass plant in Kentucky which had 503.6 tons of chemical agents left is expected to carry out the final destruction by the first week in July. Ninety per cent of the US chemical weapons stockpile stored at seven other sites across America and on Johnston Atoll in the Pacific was destroyed over a period of years in order to meet the convention deadline of September 30, 2023. Following the final destruction of chemicals at the US army Pueblo plant, a senior US official described it as a milestone in America’s commitment to have a world free of chemical weapons. “We have a national security imperative as well as a moral responsibility to reduce and eventually eliminate the threat posed by these weapons of mass destruction,” said William LaPlante, the Pentagon’s under secretary of defence for acquisitions and sustainment. The first country to eliminate its chemical weapons stocks was Albania. Nearly 17,000 kilograms of agents were destroyed by July, 2007. Syria signed the treaty but kept some chemical weapons hidden which were used to devastating effect in 2013 during the civil war. President Obama threatened to launch punitive airstrikes until Russia intervened to ensure the remaining stocks were removed and eliminated. Four countries failed to sign the chemical weapons convention: Egypt, Israel, North Korea and South Sudan.