Military confirms 2023 deadline for destroying chemical weapons

There are thousands of tons of the weapons that must be destroyed.
SALT LAKE TRIBUNE
The nation's chemical weapons arsenal won't be eliminated until 2023, the military confirmed recently.
But officials at the Army's Deseret Chemical Depot, in Tooele County, Utah, say they're still planning to be rid of their cache of deadly mustard agent by 2016 -- and hopefully sooner.
The U.S. State Department said in April it would not meet a 2007 international Chemical Weapons Convention deadline for the complete destruction of its stockpile and thus had requested an extension to 2012.
But at the same time, officials conceded, they did not plan to be done by the new deadline, either. Deseret was named as one of six chemical weapons destruction facilities -- including two still being built -- expected to be in business past 2012.
The April report said the effort to destroy more than 27,000 tons of sarin, VX, mustard and other agents had proved "extraordinarily difficult," blaming the difficulties of obtaining environmental permits, meeting community emergency planning requirements and "work stoppage to investigate and resolve problems" for the delays.
But it was vague about the date by which the U.S. government expected to get the job done. Now, Pentagon spokesman Chris Isleib said, planners have come to the conclusion that it will take until 2023.
Isleib didn't immediately provide details on the reasons for the most recent delay.
The new end date is 29 years later than first envisioned in the 1980s, when the U.S. entered into negotiations for the destruction of its chemical weapons.
Critics say there is some good news in the Pentagon's latest setback, however. The uncompleted facilities, in Pueblo, Colo., and Richmond, Ky., will be using a chemical neutralization process rather than the method of incineration used in Tooele.