weapons of mass destruction destroyed

Arkansas Arsenal Begins Destroying Weapons
By David Hammer
The Associated Press

Tuesday 29 March 2005

Little Rock, Ark. - The Pine Bluff Arsenal began destroying its stockpile of 3,850 tons of chemical weapons Tuesday, incinerating two rockets laced with sarin nerve gas.

"We are making chemical weapons history by destroying weapons stored here more than 60 years," said Dale Ormond, deputy assistant secretary of the Army.

Another 28 rockets were scheduled to be destroyed Wednesday.

The arsenal showed video of the automated process inside the disposal facility. The rockets were punctured with three holes and drained. The chemical agent flowed into an incineration furnace.

Meanwhile, the rocket tubes were sliced into eight pieces and fed into a separate furnace, where they were "safely and irreversibly destroyed," said Randy Long, Pine Bluff Arsenal's site project manager.

Twelve percent of the nation's chemical weapons are stored at the Pine Bluff Arsenal, and the military plans to incinerate all of them by 2010 to comply with an international treaty that says countries must destroy their stockpiles by 2012. Chemical weapons have also been incinerated at other military depots.

M-55 rockets are loaded with sarin nerve gas and have propellants and rocket motors.

Opponents fearful of some kind accident have not had much success in recruiting members in Arkansas, where the community has welcomed the arsenal's jobs and federal funding.

At Anniston, Ala., where disposal of a smaller stockpile started in 2003, authorities distributed gas masks to surrounding communities, but Pine Bluff Arsenal officials determined that was not necessary.

The rockets have been stored at the Pine Bluff Arsenal, about 40 miles south of Little Rock, since the early 1960s.

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