President Joe Biden stated Friday that the United States has completely destroyed its decades-old stockpiles of chemical weapons, completing the global elimination of all known stores of the agents of mass murder. “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,” Biden said.
Chemical Weapons Convention
The United States was the last signatory to the Chemical Weapons Convention, which went into effect in 1997, to finish the work of destroying their “declared” stockpiles, however, other states are suspected to have covert chemical weapons reserves. More than a century after the uncontrolled use of deadly agents during World War I resulted in enormous deaths and maiming of troops, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Deadly Weapons termed the milestone a “historic success” of disarmament. The US statement meant that all declared chemical weapons stockpiles around the world had been “verified as irreversibly destroyed,” according to the OPCW.
“I congratulate all States Parties, particularly the United States of America, on this significant achievement for the international community,” OPCW Director-General Fernando Arias stated. It was the first time “an entire category of declared weapons of mass destruction” has been certified as eliminated, according to Biden. The declaration came after the Blue Grass Army Depot, a US Army facility in Kentucky, finished a four-year project to destroy 500 tonnes of dangerous chemical agents, the final batch stored by the US military. For decades, the United States had stockpiled artillery projectiles and rockets containing mustard gases, VX and sarin nerve agents, and blister agents.
Restrictions on Weapons After WWI
Following their usage with horrifying outcomes in World War I, such weapons were severely denounced. They were not widely employed during WWII, but numerous countries kept and developed them in the years that followed. The most notable usage since the 1970s was Iraq’s nerve gas assault on Iran during their 1980s war. According to the OPCW and other authorities, the Syrian dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad deployed chemical weapons on opponents during the country’s civil conflict.
According to the US Arms Control Association, the United States possessed about 28,600 tonnes of chemical weapons in 1990, making it the world’s second-largest stockpile after Russia. As the Cold War came to an end, the superpowers and other countries came together to negotiate the Chemical Weapons Convention. Eliminating the stocks was a time-consuming process that involved neutralising not only the chemical agents but also the bombs they were packed in.
In 2017, Russia completed the destruction of its declared stockpiles. By April 2022, the United States had less than 600 tonnes to eliminate. Biden asked for sustained vigilance to guarantee that all chemical weapons across the world are destroyed, as well as for Egypt, Israel, North Korea, and South Sudan to sign or ratify the pact. Currently, four signatory countries are considered non-compliant because of the possibility of undeclared stockpiles: Myanmar, Iran, Russia, and Syria. “Russia and Syria should return to compliance with the Chemical Weapons Convention and admit their undeclared programmes, which have been used to commit brazen atrocities and attacks,” Biden said.
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