RICHMOND, Ky. — After decades of living in the shadow of chemical weapons, a Kentucky community on Wednesday celebrated the final destruction of the arsenal — culminating what Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell called a “once seemed unimaginable” achievement marking a new era in U.S. defense policy.
The milestone was reached in July, when workers destroyed the last rockets filled with chemical nerve agent that had been stored at the Blue Grass Army Depot near Richmond. It completed a decadeslong campaign to eliminate a nationwide stockpile that by the end of the Cold War totaled more than 30,000 tons (27,200 metric tonnes).
“Chemical weapons made peace uneasy in our modern world, and the U.S. and our allies must continue to condemn the use of these vile weapons and punish those who deploy them,” McConnell said during the celebration. “Today, however, we stand on the threshold of a new era in American defense — one without these weapons of terror. This achievement is as much a global victory as it is a local triumph.”
The Kentucky Republican joined state and local leaders as well as Defense Department officials to pay tribute to the workers given the painstaking assignment of destroying the weapons, closing a chapter of warfare dating back to World War I.
“Today, our nation and the American people are safer because the hard-working citizens of the commonwealth of Kentucky delivered,” Democratic Gov….
