Army's Plans for Destroying Chemical Weapons Likely To Be Waylaid

Abstract

Just issued reports and Congressional hearings and bills are conspiring to focus a bright spotlight on the chemical weapons destruction issue. And all this activity is likely to make it more difficult for the Army to carry out its plans to build destruction facilities at eight sites across the U.S. That plan began to gel in 1984 when, with the endorsement of the National Academy of Sciences, the Army decided that the best way to destroy the U.S. chemical stockpile was to dismantle the munitions and then incinerate the separate parts: chemical agent—nerve or mustard gas—explosives, metal parts, and dunnage (contaminated waste). About four years later, the Army further decided that on-site disposal of chemical weapons at the eight U.S. storage sites would be the safest way to eliminate them. The alternative would have been to transport the weapons to Johnston Atoll in the Pacific Ocean and/or to regional U.S. sites for disposal. According to ...