The use of chemical weapons during warfare were made illegal by the Geneva Protocol way back in 1925, shortly following the horrific events of world war one. Now, nearly 100 years later, the US military has finally disposed of its last drop of its reserves of those very weapons. Veuer’s Tony Spitz has the details.
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00:00The use of chemical weapons during warfare was made illegal by the Geneva Protocol way back in 1925,
00:06shortly following the horrific events of World War I.
00:09Now, nearly 100 years later, the U.S. military has finally disposed of its last drop of its reserves
00:14of those very weapons, some three decades after U.S. and Russian leadership vowed to do just that.
00:20Just a little over a week ago, the U.S. got rid of its last piece of ordnance
00:24containing a sarin gas payload.
00:26After the supply was incinerated, William A. LaPlante,
00:29Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, had this to say about it.
00:33This is the first time an international body has verified destruction of an entire category
00:38of declared weapons of mass destruction, reinforcing the United States' commitment
00:42to creating a world free of chemical weapons.
00:44Despite the horrors of World War I and the countless losses due to battlefield nerve agents,
00:49both Russia and the U.S. continued to advance not only their stockpiles,
00:52but also the diversity of their deadly gases.
00:55Sarin being one of the most lethal of all nerve agents.
00:58Now that the chemical gases are disposed of,
01:00the facilities in which they were destroyed can now begin their cleanup,
01:03a process which is expected to take years.