The U.S. on course to deactivating all its chemical weapons

U.S. stockpile because they are a complete weapon system, containing high explosives, a propellant motor, and an agent-filled warhead that work together to ignite, propel the rocket, and release the agent. Each rocket contains approximately ten pounds of agent. M55 rockets were never used in combat, but served as a deterrent. Developed in the late 1950s, more than 400,000 were produced in the United States between 1961 and 1965. CMA says it overcame both storage and disposal challenges presented by the rockets’ explosive configuration, and that it took safety measures to reduce the risk to workers and the public. The agency first targeted GB-filled M55 rockets for disposal at each of the sites mentioned above. CMA also implemented strict inspection procedures, conducted risk assessments, and developed contingency plans to reduce risk. Mitigation measures were implemented to reduce the risk of external events such as lightning strikes or earthquakes. “With both the GB and VX rockets destroyed, the risk to the local Pine Bluff community has been reduced by 97 percent,” said Lt. Col. Clifton Johnston, PBCA commander. “This is a significant accomplishment for all the dedicated men and women working on the chemical weapons disposal project,” said Mark Greer, PBCDF site project manager.

There are things yet to be done. The Pine Bluff facility will now focus on disposing of VX-filled land mines. CMA hopes to reach its

next major milestone, the elimination of all VX agent, some time in 2009.

Reaching this rocket disposal milestone is a significant achievement, but CMA says it remains vigilant in its M55 rocket safe storage mission. A CMA subordinate unit, the Blue Grass Chemical Activity, is responsible for the safe storage of M55 rockets at the Blue Grass Army Depot in Richmond,

Kentucky. CMA will continue this storage mission pending those rockets being destroyed via the Program Manager for Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives (ACWA).

History

The work of the CMA builds on a history stretching more than tree decades. On 25 November 1969 President Richard Nixon unilaterally renounced the first use of chemical weapons and renounced all methods of biological warfare. He issued a unilateral decree halting production and transport of chemical weapons which remains in effect. The United States began to research safer disposal methods for chemical weapons in the 1970s, destroying several thousand tons of mustard gas by incineration at Rocky Mountain Arsenal and nearly 4,200 tons of nerve agent by chemical neutralization at Tooele Army Depot and Rocky Mountain Arsenal. in the 1980s the United States began stockpile reductions, removing some outdated munitions and destroying its entire stock of BZ beginning in 1988. In 1990 Johnston Atoll Chemical Agent Disposal System began destruction of chemical agents stored on Johnston Atoll in the Pacific, seven years before the Chemical Weapons Treaty came into effect. In May 1991 President George H. W. Bush unilaterally committed the United States to destroying all chemical weapons and to renouncing the right to chemical weapon retaliation. In 1993 the United States signed the Chemical Weapons Treaty, which required the destruction of all chemical weapon agents, dispersal systems, and chemical weapons production facilities by April 2012. The U.S. prohibition on the transport of chemical weapons has meant that destruction facilities had to be constructed at each of the U.S. nine storage facilities. The United States met the first three of the treaty’s four deadlines, destroying 45 percent of its stockpile of chemical weapons by 2007. It is not likely, though, that the United States would meet the 2012 deadline for the complete elimination of all chemical weapons in its arsenal.