The projectiles and mortars comprised about 8.5% of the country’s original chemical weapons stockpile of 30,610 tons of agent.Ĭraig Williams, who became the leading voice of the community opposition and later a partner with political leadership and the military, said residents were concerned about potential toxic pollution from burning the deadly chemical agents.
In southern Colorado, workers at the Army Pueblo Chemical Depot started destroying the weapons in 2016, and on June 22 completed their mission of neutralizing an entire cache of about 2,600 tons of mustard blister agent. Despite their use being subsequently banned by the Geneva Convention, countries continued to stockpile the weapons until the treaty calling for their destruction. National security adviser Jake Sullivan said Ukraine has promised to use the munitions - bombs that open in the air and release scores of smaller bomblets - carefully.Ĭhemical weapons were first used in modern warfare in World War I, where they were estimated have killed at least 100,000. “Though the use of these deadly agents will always be a stain on history, today our nation has finally fulfilled our promise to rid our arsenal of this evil.įriday’s announcement came as the Biden administration has also decided to provide cluster munitions to Ukraine, a weapon that two-thirds of NATO countries have banned because it can cause many civilian casualties. “Chemical weapons are responsible for some of the most horrific episodes of human loss,” Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said in a statement. is officially underscoring that these types of weapons are no longer acceptable in the battlefield and sending a message to the handful of countries that haven’t joined the agreement, military experts say. The munitions being destroyed in Kentucky are the last of 51,000 M55 rockets with GB nerve agent - a deadly toxin also known as sarin - that have been stored at the depot since the 1940s.īy destroying the munitions, the U.S.
30 deadline to eliminate its remaining chemical weapons under the international Chemical Weapons Convention, which took effect in 1997 and was joined by 193 countries. It’s also a defining moment for arms control efforts worldwide. The weapons’ destruction is a major watershed for Richmond, Kentucky and Pueblo, Colorado, where an Army depot destroyed the last of its chemical agents last month.
DEADLY PREY GALLERY FREE
“Today, I am proud to announce that the United States has safely destroyed the final munition in that stockpile - bringing us one step closer to a world free from the horrors of chemical weapons.” “For more than 30 years, the United States has worked tirelessly to eliminate our chemical weapons stockpile,” President Joe Biden said in a statement released by the White House. Workers at the Blue Grass Army Depot in Kentucky destroyed rockets filled with GB nerve agent, completing a decadeslong campaign to eliminate a stockpile that by the end of the Cold War totaled more than 30,000 tons. (AP) - The last of the United States’ declared chemical weapons stockpile was destroyed at a sprawling military installation in eastern Kentucky, the White House announced Friday, a milestone that closes a chapter of warfare dating back to World War I.
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