Chemical Weapons News – May 15

Weapons destruction coming soon? Proposed budget would speed up chemical weapons destruction – Peter Marcus – the Denver Daily News
After decades of waiting, residents of Pueblo may finally be seeing the light at the end of the chemical depot. The Pentagon has proposed a budget that would accelerate the destruction of chemical weapons stored just 15 miles outside of Pueblo at the Pueblo Chemical Depot. Defense officials have called for $250 million more than anticipated this year, asking for $545 million to clean up mustard agent vapor at the site…

Pentagon backs onsite disposal at Pueblo Depot – Associated Press
Colorado Sen. Mark Udall says the Pentagon’s proposed budget calls for destroying chemical weapons stored near Pueblo on site rather than shipping them elsewhere…

Pueblo Chemical Weapons Disposal Waste to be Treated at Depot – Global Security Newswire
The U.S. Defense Department does not plan to transport waste produced through chemical neutralization of mustard blister agent stored at the Pueblo Chemical Depot in Colorado to another facility for treatment, U.S. Senator Mark Udall (D-Colo.) said yesterday…

Russia Could Miss Chemical Weapons Disposal Deadline, Lawmaker Says – Global Security Newswire
A Russian lawmaker said the nation might not be able to meet the April 2012 deadline to eliminate its stockpile of chemical weapons…

Egypt refusing to sign WMD treaties – The Jerusalem Post
Egypt is refusing to sign treaties prohibiting biological and chemical weapons, a week after it was reported that weapons-grade uranium was found in Egypt. The news, released in remarks by Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmad Aboul-Gheit to the Egyptian weekly Ruz Al-Yousuf, could lend credence to speculation that Egypt is seeking weapons of mass destruction…

Mustard Gas Leak Found at Oregon Chemical Depot – Global Security Newswire
A minute amount of mustard blister agent vapor leaked from a container stored at the Umatilla Chemical Depot in Oregon…

Umatilla Chemical Depot Detects Trace of Mustard Chemical Agent – KVEWTV.com
A depot chemical operations monitoring crew detected trace amounts of mustard chemical agent vapor today inside a depot storage structure containing ton containers…

Madison County Tornado was an F3 – Kentucky.com
Madison County officials have counted about 150 buildings, mostly homes, that were damaged by the tornado. Officials didn’t count barns and silos. It also crossed the Bluegrass Chemical Activity, and skirted the northern edge of the Chemical Limited Area, where deadly nerve agent is stored…

Biological Weapons, Instead Of Nuclear Reactor, Keep Syria Within Axis Of Evil – David Bedein – The Bulletin
Syria has reportedly rebuilt the structure that housed the reactor bombed by Israel last year and has turned the site into a facility for manufacturing chemical and biological weapons. Official sources stated Syria had significantly expanded its biological and chemical weapons program by doing so…

Asian Training on Chemical Weapons Underway – The Korea Times
A five-day international training course on protection from chemical warfare opened here Monday, the Ministry of National Defense said…

Newly declassified data reveals insurgent use of white phosphorus – US Central Command
Today, CJTF-101 has declassified a report of 38 events in which insurgents have used or stockpiled white phosphorus munitions in the Regional Command-East area of operations. The declassification and release are in response to claims that insurgents do not use, nor have access to, white phosphorus…

U.S. Maintains Sanctions on Syria Despite Diplomatic Outreach – Global Security Newswire
U.S. President Barack Obama on Friday said he plans to maintain existing economic and diplomatic sanctions against Syria, even as he attempts to reach out to the Middle Eastern nation…

U.S. denies using chemical in west Afghan battle – Peter Graff – Reuters
The U.S. military denied on Sunday it had used the incendiary chemical white phosphorus in a battle that killed civilians in west Afghanistan last week, after a rights group said it was investigating suspicious burns…

Funds would clear Pueblo cache – The Denver Post
The Department of Defense has allocated $550 million next year for disposal of obsolete chemical weapons at two U.S. facilities, enough to complete in-place disposal of the cache at the Pueblo Chemical Depot by the 2017 congressional deadline…

Defense Department Seeks $550M to Accelerate Chemical Weapons Disposal – Global Security Newswire
The U.S. Defense Department is seeking $550.4 million in fiscal 2010 to prepare sites in two states for chemical weapons disposal operations…

Army pushes for demil money – John Norton – The Pueblo Chieftain
The Pentagon’s budget request, due to be made public today, reportedly will ask for a major increase in funding for chemical demilitarization projects in Pueblo and Lexington, Ky., in order to meet a new deadline imposed by Congress…

Pentagon will miss chemical weapons deadline by 9 years – McClatchy
The Pentagon plans on ramping up by more than three years the destruction of chemical weapons at Blue Grass Army Depot, a move that includes an additional $1.2 billion in construction at two new disposal plants in Kentucky and Colorado, according to the Department of Defense…

U.S. speeds chemical weapons destruction – United Press International
The U.S. Defense Department is stepping up its program to destroy old chemical weapons, budget documents indicate…