the United States’ effort to get rid of its own stockpile has now taken 28 years and $35 billion [NYT estimates] — and it is not yet over. Over the years, the United States has led the world in developing special furnaces that scrub out dangerous waste products, and it has created methods to react the material with water and other chemicals to permanently undo the toxic structures. It has built seven destruction plants across the world, including at Johnston Atoll in the Pacific and the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, and it is in the process of building two more, at Richmond, Ky., and Pueblo, Colo.
Beyond the money, there are plenty of questions that remain unanswered: what will be destroyed in-country, and what will have to be taken out of Syria for destruction? Can 1,000 tons of chemical weapons be airlifted? Taken over-land through a civil war? Taken out via cargo ships?
Secretary of State Kerry and his Russian counterpart are currently working with their top chemical weapons experts to try to solve these sticky logistical problems. And the U.S. has some experience destroying chemical weapons in hard- to-reach areas. For example, the CTR [Cooperative Threat Reduction] program eliminated 16 tons of chemical weapons from Albania [circa 2004?] by building a disposal facility in Germany and shipping the entire building into Albania. Former Defense Secretary William Perry wisely called this program “defense by other means.”
Heard some of Rush Limbaugh's program the other day criticizing Assad and Syria as if he is oblivious to any of that. These are basic issues that reporters and commentators are not much addressing responsibly.