Washington Eliminates Its Last Stocks of Chemical Weapons: The End of an Era

Washington is on the verge of neutralizing its last stocks of chemical weapons, the world’s last declared arsenal. The “New York Times” followed this dismantling which completes an international treaty signed twenty-six years ago.

Metal tubes engulfed by an oven heated to 800°C. This is how the American army gets rid of its last chemical weapons ammunition, previously emptied of their nerve agents. The dismantling, documented by the New York Times in a depot in Pueblo (in the State of Colorado), is a reflection of the arsenal available to the United States: spectacular. It will have taken 42 billion dollars (38 billion euros), that is to say thirty times more than what the American Department of Defense had planned, to neutralize the tons of chemical agents, stored in eight American states.

It must be said that since the Second World War, the American army has procured a generous catalog: “Cluster bombs and landmines full of nerve agents. Artillery shells capable of covering entire forests with a cloud of mustard gas. Tanks filled with poison that can be loaded onto jets and sprayed at targets below,” recounts the New York Times. Technologies as diverse as their effects on living beings are appalling. Although the use of this class of weapon was banned after the ravages of mustard gas – the famous mustard gas, so called because of its characteristic smell – during the First World War, “the United States and other powers have nevertheless continued to develop and accumulate them”.

“We can be very proud”

In the meantime, a multitude of other processes have emerged, such as sarin gas or VX, far more deadly than mustard gas. The US military is not known to have used lethal chemical weapons. But the New York Times recalls that she was still guilty of having used, during the Vietnam War (1955 to 1975), “herbicides like Agent Orange which were harmful to humans”.

It took until 1997 for the United States and 164 other countries to ratify a treaty committing them to get rid of their chemical weapons. And it took another twenty-six years for this commitment to be kept. “We had to fight, and it took a long time, but I think we can be very proud,” said Craig Williams, who has campaigned for the destruction of stockpiles since 1984, when he realized that some were stored 8 kilometers from his home.

Environmental risks

The United Kingdom got rid of its arsenals in 2007, followed by India two years later, and Russia announced the end of its dismantling in 2017. For the United States, the vertiginous size of its stocks has made the operation long and complex. Initially, the army had thought of sinking the arsenals in the middle of the Atlantic, then incinerating them in one piece. But the environmental risks posed by these two methods forced the army to backtrack, says the New York Times. It was therefore necessary to find a solution to neutralize the ammunition without burning the nerve agents. Metal shells, mines or rockets were pierced and emptied of their container before being washed and cooked until they were harmless. The poison was diluted in hot water and then reduced to a white powder intended for treatment. At the time of reporting, the military predicted that by this Friday, July 7, “all publicly declared chemical weapons in the world will have been eliminated.”

Unfortunately, this page that is turning probably does not mark the end of the use of weapons in the world. The past decade has been marked by tragic chemical attacks. Notably in 2013, in Syria, when Bashar al-Assad’s regime was responsible for a sarin gas attack in Ghouta, a suburb of Damascus, which killed more than 1,300 people. Before reusing this neurotoxic in 2017 in northwestern Syria, or using chlorine during a bombardment in Douma, in 2018. More recently, with the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, suspicion weighs on the possible use of a chemical weapon by the forces of Moscow in Mariupol, a martyr city now occupied. The proof that announcements are not always followed by effects.

2023-07-07 17:55:35
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