NZ Herald
  • Home
  • Latest news
  • Herald NOW
  • Video
  • New Zealand
  • Sport
  • World
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Podcasts
  • Quizzes
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Viva
  • Weather

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • New Zealand
    • All New Zealand
    • Crime
    • Politics
    • Education
    • Open Justice
    • Scam Update
  • Herald NOW
  • On The Up
  • World
    • All World
    • Australia
    • Asia
    • UK
    • United States
    • Middle East
    • Europe
    • Pacific
  • Business
    • All Business
    • MarketsSharesCurrencyCommoditiesStock TakesCrypto
    • Markets with Madison
    • Media Insider
    • Business analysis
    • Personal financeKiwiSaverInterest ratesTaxInvestment
    • EconomyInflationGDPOfficial cash rateEmployment
    • Small business
    • Business reportsMood of the BoardroomProject AucklandSustainable business and financeCapital markets reportAgribusiness reportInfrastructure reportDynamic business
    • Deloitte Top 200 Awards
    • CompaniesAged CareAgribusinessAirlinesBanking and financeConstructionEnergyFreight and logisticsHealthcareManufacturingMedia and MarketingRetailTelecommunicationsTourism
  • Opinion
    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Editorials
    • Business analysis
    • Premium opinion
    • Letters to the editor
  • Politics
  • Sport
    • All Sport
    • OlympicsParalympics
    • RugbySuper RugbyNPCAll BlacksBlack FernsRugby sevensSchool rugby
    • CricketBlack CapsWhite Ferns
    • Racing
    • NetballSilver Ferns
    • LeagueWarriorsNRL
    • FootballWellington PhoenixAuckland FCAll WhitesFootball FernsEnglish Premier League
    • GolfNZ Open
    • MotorsportFormula 1
    • Boxing
    • UFC
    • BasketballNBABreakersTall BlacksTall Ferns
    • Tennis
    • Cycling
    • Athletics
    • SailingAmerica's CupSailGP
    • Rowing
  • Lifestyle
    • All Lifestyle
    • Viva - Food, fashion & beauty
    • Society Insider
    • Royals
    • Sex & relationships
    • Food & drinkRecipesRecipe collectionsRestaurant reviewsRestaurant bookings
    • Health & wellbeing
    • Fashion & beauty
    • Pets & animals
    • The Selection - Shop the trendsShop fashionShop beautyShop entertainmentShop giftsShop home & living
    • Milford's Investing Place
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • TV
    • MoviesMovie reviews
    • MusicMusic reviews
    • BooksBook reviews
    • Culture
    • ReviewsBook reviewsMovie reviewsMusic reviewsRestaurant reviews
  • Travel
    • All Travel
    • News
    • New ZealandNorthlandAucklandWellingtonCanterburyOtago / QueenstownNelson-TasmanBest NZ beaches
    • International travelAustraliaPacific IslandsEuropeUKUSAAfricaAsia
    • Rail holidays
    • Cruise holidays
    • Ski holidays
    • Luxury travel
    • Adventure travel
  • Kāhu Māori news
  • Environment
    • All Environment
    • Our Green Future
  • Talanoa Pacific news
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Property Insider
    • Interest rates tracker
    • Residential property listings
    • Commercial property listings
  • Health
  • Technology
    • All Technology
    • AI
    • Social media
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
    • Opinion
    • Audio & podcasts
  • Weather forecasts
    • All Weather forecasts
    • Kaitaia
    • Whangārei
    • Dargaville
    • Auckland
    • Thames
    • Tauranga
    • Hamilton
    • Whakatāne
    • Rotorua
    • Tokoroa
    • Te Kuiti
    • Taumaranui
    • Taupō
    • Gisborne
    • New Plymouth
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Dannevirke
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Levin
    • Paraparaumu
    • Masterton
    • Wellington
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Blenheim
    • Westport
    • Reefton
    • Kaikōura
    • Greymouth
    • Hokitika
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
    • Wānaka
    • Oamaru
    • Queenstown
    • Dunedin
    • Gore
    • Invercargill
  • Meet the journalists
  • Promotions & competitions
  • OneRoof property listings
  • Driven car news

Puzzles & Quizzes

  • Puzzles
    • All Puzzles
    • Sudoku
    • Code Cracker
    • Crosswords
    • Cryptic crossword
    • Wordsearch
  • Quizzes
    • All Quizzes
    • Morning quiz
    • Afternoon quiz
    • Sports quiz

Regions

  • Northland
    • All Northland
    • Far North
    • Kaitaia
    • Kerikeri
    • Kaikohe
    • Bay of Islands
    • Whangarei
    • Dargaville
    • Kaipara
    • Mangawhai
  • Auckland
  • Waikato
    • All Waikato
    • Hamilton
    • Coromandel & Hauraki
    • Matamata & Piako
    • Cambridge
    • Te Awamutu
    • Tokoroa & South Waikato
    • Taupō & Tūrangi
  • Bay of Plenty
    • All Bay of Plenty
    • Katikati
    • Tauranga
    • Mount Maunganui
    • Pāpāmoa
    • Te Puke
    • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua
  • Hawke's Bay
    • All Hawke's Bay
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Havelock North
    • Central Hawke's Bay
    • Wairoa
  • Taranaki
    • All Taranaki
    • Stratford
    • New Plymouth
    • Hāwera
  • Manawatū - Whanganui
    • All Manawatū - Whanganui
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Manawatū
    • Tararua
    • Horowhenua
  • Wellington
    • All Wellington
    • Kapiti
    • Wairarapa
    • Upper Hutt
    • Lower Hutt
  • Nelson & Tasman
    • All Nelson & Tasman
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Tasman
  • Marlborough
  • West Coast
  • Canterbury
    • All Canterbury
    • Kaikōura
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
  • Otago
    • All Otago
    • Oamaru
    • Dunedin
    • Balclutha
    • Alexandra
    • Queenstown
    • Wanaka
  • Southland
    • All Southland
    • Invercargill
    • Gore
    • Stewart Island
  • Gisborne

Media

  • Video
    • All Video
    • NZ news video
    • Herald NOW
    • Business news video
    • Politics news video
    • Sport video
    • World news video
    • Lifestyle video
    • Entertainment video
    • Travel video
    • Markets with Madison
    • Kea Kids news
  • Podcasts
    • All Podcasts
    • The Front Page
    • On the Tiles
    • Ask me Anything
    • The Little Things
  • Cartoons
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / World

In US arsenal, lessons for Syria chemical weapons

AP
13 Sep, 2013 12:10 PM4 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

WASHINGTON (AP) Three decades after the United States started destroying its own chemical weapons, the nation's stockpile stands at more than 3,000 tons about three times what the U.S. now says Syrian President Bashar Assad controls.

While the U.S. has made significant progress, eradicating 90 percent of the 31,500 tons it once possessed, the military doesn't expect to complete destruction until 2023.

Like other countries, the United States has found that complying with the Chemical Weapons Convention that banned such weaponry isn't easy to do.

Now, as the U.S. and others push Syria to surrender its arsenal, the challenges that have hindered America's efforts for a generation are illustrating the daunting task of securing and ultimately dismantling Assad's stockpiles in the middle of a civil war.

Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov were meeting over two days with chemical weapons experts in Geneva to discuss how to do that.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Although the death toll in Syria from conventional weapons has surpassed 100,000, it wasn't until the U.S. said it determined that Assad's government had used chemical weapons on a large scale that President Barack Obama seriously threatened military action.

That's because chemical weapons, Obama says, are different.

"Men, women, children lying in rows, killed by poison gas. Others foaming at the mouth, gasping for breath," Obama told the nation Tuesday night, describing the Aug. 21 attack that the U.S. says killed more than 1,400 Syrians, including hundreds of children.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Left unsaid was that the remaining U.S. stockpile includes many of the same chemicals in Assad's possession. The Syrian regime has more than 1,000 tons of sulfur, mustard gas and the ingredients for sarin and the nerve agent VX, Kerry told Congress this week.

Under a tenuous diplomatic deal being coordinated by Russia, which holds the world's largest remaining chemical weapons stockpile, Syria would join the Chemical Weapons Convention, declare its stockpiles and hand them over to the international community for destruction, all to avert a punitive U.S. military strike.

It's unclear how that task can be carried out when there's distrust of Syria in the international community, uncertainty about the weapons' locations and ongoing fighting between Assad's forces and rebels. The White House says it will require extensive verification to ensure that stall tactics aren't disguised as legitimate delays.

In the U.S., those delays have ranged from environmental ones and political opposition to technical and safety challenges to tough laws restricting the transport of chemical weapons. It's also been difficult to round up the tens of billions of dollars to pay for destroying the cache.

"All of this is a slow process," said Dieter Rothbacher, a former U.N. chemical weapons inspector who has worked in Iraq, Russia and the U.S. "Falling behind (schedule) is actually relatively easy."

The U.S. started developing chemical weapons around World War I, steadily increasing its capabilities through World War II until 1968. The stockpile grew to about 31,500 tons of sarin, VX, mustard gas and other agents, according to the Army. Russia, by comparison, has said it amassed about 44,000 tons.

The move toward destroying the United States' chemical weapons started in the 1970s, building momentum in the 1980s when Congress directed the Defense Department to start eliminating the stockpile.

That commitment became an international obligation when the U.S. signed the Chemical Weapons Convention in 1993 and ratified it four years later. That started the clock on a 10-year period in which the U.S. was supposed to destroy the rest of its chemical weapons.

The process is complex.

The two basic methods chemical neutralization and incineration both require specialized facilities. Using incineration, chemicals must be heated to thousands of degrees. Decades-old storage containers can be leaky and tough to handle. Destruction produces highly hazardous waste that must be carefully stored. And assembled weapons, like those chemicals already loaded into rockets and packed with explosives, pose their own dangers.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

The Army used to destroy chemical weapons at nine sites across the U.S. By January 2012, troops had completed 90 percent of the job, and only two active sites now remain.

The U.S. has long since missed its original 2007 deadline, which was extended to 2012, then missed again. Russia is behind schedule too.

___

Associated Press writer Josh Lederman in Washington and AP Science Writer Seth Borenstein contributed to this report.

___

Follow Josh Lederman on Twitter at http://twitter.com/joshledermanAP

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Save

    Share this article

Latest from World

World

Woman's arm reportedly ripped off in lion attack at Queensland zoo

06 Jul 04:49 AM
World

Ozzy Osbourne's final Black Sabbath gig draws thousands in Birmingham

06 Jul 02:09 AM
World

Brics leaders to challenge US tariffs at Rio summit

06 Jul 01:49 AM

There’s more to Hawai‘i than beaches and buffets – here’s how to see it differently

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from World

Woman's arm reportedly ripped off in lion attack at Queensland zoo

Woman's arm reportedly ripped off in lion attack at Queensland zoo

06 Jul 04:49 AM

A woman in her 50s has been rushed to hospital with significant injuries.

Ozzy Osbourne's final Black Sabbath gig draws thousands in Birmingham

Ozzy Osbourne's final Black Sabbath gig draws thousands in Birmingham

06 Jul 02:09 AM
Brics leaders to challenge US tariffs at Rio summit

Brics leaders to challenge US tariffs at Rio summit

06 Jul 01:49 AM
'Arson attack is cowardly': PMs condemn Melbourne synagogue blaze

'Arson attack is cowardly': PMs condemn Melbourne synagogue blaze

06 Jul 01:35 AM
From early mornings to easy living
sponsored

From early mornings to easy living

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • NZ Herald e-editions
  • Daily puzzles & quizzes
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Subscribe to the NZ Herald newspaper
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP