If you want to know where the WMDs are, look no further. In fact in at least seven US communities you can see them by looking out your window. We're talking about our WMDs, of course. It's OK for us to have them. They won't get into the hands of terrorists from us. At least we hope not. They are a mighty tempting target, though, which is why Congress wanted them destroyed ASAP as "a homeland security imperative." Which isn't a problem because the US is committed to destroying them anyway by 2012 in accordance with the international Chemical Weapons Convention. Except we won't be doing that, it seems.
The Pentagon has extended its timeline to destroy its aging chemical weapons arsenal until 2023, despite concerns by Congress and watchdog groups that the stockpiles raise the risk of an accident or theft by terrorists.The new schedule, outlined in Pentagon documents obtained by USA TODAY, means the military won't eliminate its stock of deadly nerve gases and skin-blistering agents until 11 years after the 2012 deadline set by the international Chemical Weapons Convention. The U.S. government had already asked for a five-year extension from an earlier 2007 deadline.
Communities near the seven sites where weapons are stockpiled have long complained about the delays. Congress echoed those concerns this year, when it called eliminating the stockpiles "a homeland security imperative" and directed the Pentagon in a defense bill to "make every effort" to destroy them by the convention deadline or "soon thereafter." (USA Today)
These weapons are destroyed by incineration. Plants are now operating in five states, but the Pentagon is slowing construction of two neutralization (as opposed to incineration) facilities in Colorado and Kentucky. Kentucky is the home state of the new Republican Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell. Either he doesn't care or he has no influence. Probably a little of each.
The US had over 30,000 tons of chemical WMDs in its arsenal. Exactly who they were planning to use them on isn't clear. The Pentagon began destroying them in 1986. Yes, that's right. Twenty years go. And they're not even half done. Meanwhile getting rid of them has gotten more expensive. Originally the estimate was $2 billion. Now it's $32 billion. Who knows what it will cost by 2023 when they are now guessing they'll be finishing up. If the WMDs are still there, that is, and haven't been "liberated" by some crazed anti-abortion terrorist group.
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"Exactly who they were planning to use them on isn't clear."
Are you kidding? On the Warsaw Pact, of course.
The problem is that the weapons have become unstable. The cost of just moving them to the incinerators has tripled. Then there is availabilty of incinerators. Lots of lawsuits have stopped construction or use of them. Provo Utah has a huge incinerator and Revere is old enough to remember the Army dumping this shiti into the ocean a few years back. It does break down in heat and heat alone, you bury it and you bury a problem.
German WMD's were found here on site at the Memphis Defense Depot after having been decontaminated some sixty years ago. The whiz wheel contractors put bubbles over the burial sites and sent kids in there because their testing showed no viable weapon grade contamination. Well screw me. The former head of the Corps of Engineers kid was one of them, summer job wating to go to school. He reached down with just ordinary gloves and helped another get it into the bucket of a front end loader. Well thats when things went south. This was a mustard gas bomb and indeed it had been deconned, but what they tested for and what they were standing in are two different things. They were standing in Lewisite, one of the hairiest chem weapons on this planet. They both started to have problems breathing and they were rushed to the Med and by the time they got there (Revere will appreciate this) they were swollen to twice their sizes and were pumping blood from their pores. Fortunately they had been intubated by the EMT's and massive doses of atropine and steroids and a little help from dialysis machines they both made it.
Those weapons are horrendously unstable and unless its dealt with very quickly places like Aberdeen Maryland, Pine Bluff Arkansas might become killing grounds. One leak from a mustard gas bomb, phosgene, VX, cyanide and you will have a kill of immense proportions. Dont worry about the loonies getting them. Picking one up would likely set it off. Would kill about the number of people it was supposed to as well. Think we have it bad? The Ruskies are in horrible shape and they are just getting started on their stockpiles.
Our destruction process is handled by the way thru the Chemical Weapons Division in Huntsville Alabama. They can answer any questions you have. The answers though are all bad.
I dunno about chem weapons, but I have a picture of meself sitting in the right hand seat of one of those bat planes they house at Knob Noster. Whiteman AFB is home base for all of the B2 bombers in our arsenal.
Talk about your weapons of mass destruction.
I sleep pretty good MoM knowing that the two star thats the commander of the 509th was my deputy base commander about 18 years ago. Things would have to go really south to get one of those things on the way to a delivery. Yep, enough on 10 planes to nearly poison all of the earth atmosphere and maybe a nuclear winter. Whatever the case I wouldnt worry too terribly much about that.
They are there because its so hard to hit them except with a sub launched missile. The alert birds would be gone in plenty of time. but as I said... WMD's are the peace dividend. We gave up conventional forces for superior firepower. It also eventuates the need to use them sometime later when a larger conventional force than we can handle shows up with a lot of whupass.