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Monday, August 24, 2009
News U.S. stock of chemical weapons go bye-bye
Posted By Rhiannon Fionn-Bowman on Mon, Aug 24, 2009 at 10:46 AM
Good thing the U.N. isn't ready to invade our country on the hunt for weapons of mass destruction. (Hashtag: Hypocrites.)
Behind armed guards in bulletproof booths deep in the Kentucky woods, workers have begun pouring the foundations for a $3 billion complex designed to destroy America's last stockpile of deadly chemical weapons.The aging arsenal at the Blue Grass Army Depot contains 523 tons of liquid VX and sarin -- lethal nerve agents produced during the Cold War -- and mustard, a blister agent that caused horrific casualties in World War I.
President Barack Obama's administration has pushed to speed up the disposal operation after decades of delay, skyrocketing costs and daunting technical problems. The arms must be destroyed by April 2012 under an international treaty and by December 2017 under federal law. But the Pentagon notified Congress in May that, even under what it called an accelerated schedule, it would not finish the job until 2021.
More from The Chicago Tribune.
Aren't you glad we've stopped dumping them off the coast of North Carolina?
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