| Posted by fluffy ® , Sep 05,2003,11:26 | MetroBlab |
http://www9.sbs.com.au/theworldnews/region.php?id=67900®ion=4
The United States has admitted it will not meet an April 2004 deadline for destroying its arsenal of chemical weapons, adding it will need another five years to reach the 45 per cent target.
The 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention, signed by 150 countries including the US, requires signatories to destroy their entire chemical arsenal by 2007.
But the US Defense Department said it would not be able to meet the initial requirement to liquidate 45 percent of its chemical stockpile by April 29, 2004. And the convention's final 2007 deadline is also likely to slip.
Only about 23 percent of the chemical stockpile has been destroyed. The Pentagon blamed unresolved political and operational issues for the delay.
At the time of the signing, the United States admitting having about 31,000 tonnes of such weapons, including 3.3 million bombs, rockets, artillery shells and cartridges and 315,682 binary munitions, in which chemicals are mixed in flight to produce deadly gas.