Russian’s getting ready to destroy chemical weapon stockpiles – where is the US? Lagging way behind.
Russia leads the world in destroying its chemical weapons stockpile. In fact Russia surpasses the United States, which lags way behind most signatories of the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention ban. A fact that is seen as an embarrassment by some Pentagon officials I talked with.
Russia has destroyed more than “30,000 metric tons of chemical warfare agents so far, or about 76 percent of its chemical weapons stockpile”, Russia’s industry and trade minister said Thursday.
“Russia has destroyed more chemical agents than any other of the 180 signees of the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention, Minister Denis Manturov said while visiting a chemical weapons disposal facility in the Bryansk Region, which borders Ukraine and Belarus.” (Source: RIA http://en.ria.ru/military_news/20130808/182657926/Russia-Destroys-Over-75-of-Its-Chemical-Weapons-Stockpile.html).
We contacted the Pentagon to ask the question why Russia is ahead of the United States in this regard – and got no real answers.
Oddly enough the Pentagon source who we contacted to comment on this situation (and requested that we not use his name in our report) said he wasn’t even aware of the fact that Russia has destroyed around 76% of its chemical stockpile? I wound up sharing with this particular official open source information readily available on the internet about the fact that Russia has destroyed 76% of its stockpile?
So much for the Pentagon being on top of things.