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Pipefitters use a band saw to cut pipe near the Biotreatment Area of the Pueblo Chemical Depot [Related Story]

Manager of Tooele Chemical Agent Disposal Facility Gary McCloskey talks about the final steps taken as incinerated mustard gas canisters begin the cool-down process on a TV screen feed at Deseret Chemical Depot Wednesday, 18 January 2012.

Inside the Control and Support Building, workers review plans for rooms to be occupied by future Blue Grass Chemical Agent-Destruction Pilot Plant operations personnel.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton delivers a policy statement to the Biological Weapons Convention Review Conference at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, on December 7, 2011.

OPCW Director-General Ambassador Ahmet Üzümcü laid a wreath at the Belgian memorial in Ieper on November 11, 2011 for the annual ceremony there commemorating the end of World War I. Ieper was the site of the first large-scale use of poison gas as a weapon of war, on April 22, 1915.

One of two 2,400-gallon capacity Agent Neutralization Reactors is lowered into place in the Munitions Demilitarization Building, the Blue Grass Chemical Agent-Destruction Pilot Plant's main processing building. Once plant operations begin, the Agent Neutralization Reactors will mix liquid chemical agent with hot water and sodium hydroxide to neutralize the agent.

Officials at the Umatilla Chemical Agent Disposal Facility (UMCDF) stand behind the last HD mustard container to be destroyed, October 25, 2011.

The sun rises at the Pueblo Chemical Agent-Destruction Pilot Plant, showing the evaporator and crystallizer that make up part of the Brine Reduction System, which will recycle up to 85 percent of the water used in the agent neutralization process back through the system for reuse.

Sign congratulating workers at the Anniston Chemical Activity incinerator complex on successfully completing the eight-year effort to destroy the 661,529 chemical agent-filled munitions and 2,254 metric tons of chemical agent formerly stored at the Alabama facility.

Anniston Chemical Activity (ANCA) employees move the last pallet of 48 mustard agent-filled 105mm projectiles out of a storage igloo for movement to the Anniston Chemical Agent Disposal Facility (ANCDF) on September 8. The projectiles were part of a shipment of 72 munitions to the ANCDF, the last ones stored by ANCA.

At the Pueblo Chemical Agent-Destruction Pilot Plant, a pipefitter clamps a pipe in preparation for welding near the Biotreatment Area pipe rack. During operations, the byproduct of chemical agent neutralization, hydrolysate, will be treated in the Biotreatment Area.

Workers assemble scaffolding in preparation for work on the Munitions Demilitarization Building at the Blue Grass Chemical Agent-Destruction Pilot Plant, the plant’s main processing building, in August.

Pueblo Chemical Agent-Destruction Pilot Plant employees practice on-site emergency preparedness in June by evacuating and assembling in one place. The drill was a part of the Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness Program’s annual exercise that helps prepare emergency services personnel for a real life emergency.

Workers secure the 24-foot-long, 11-foot-wide Explosive Containment Cubicle to a trailer and prepare it for shipment to the Army’s Edgewood Chemical Biological Center.

Concrete is often placed in the morning to allow time for workers to smooth the concrete and prepare it for proper curing at the Blue Grass Chemical Agent-Destruction Pilot Plant Supercritical Water Oxidation Processing Building.

Workers install structural steel on the Blue Grass Chemical Agent Destruction Pilot Plant Munitions Demilitarization Building in May 2011.

Earth covered 'igloos' containing chemical munitions at the Blue Grass Army Depot, Kentucky

OPCW Director-General Ahmet Üzümcü with members of the Chemical Weapons Convention Coalition at the OPCW Headquarters on April 13, 2011

Diplomats view the gallery exhibition of chemical weapon victims of Halabja at the Embassy of the Republic of Iraq in The Hague in March.

A delegation from the OPCW Executive Council visited the Pueblo Chemical Agent Destruction Pilot Plant in Colorado February 28 – March 4, 2011.

Participants in the OPCW Assistex 3 live exercise in Tunis, Tunisia, 14 October 2010.

Construction of the Pochep chemical weapon destruction facility in Russia's Bryansk Region is nearly completed.

OPCW Director-General, Ambassador Ahmet Üzümcü (left), exiting the VX storage igloo at the Blue Grass facility. The Ambassador visited the United States from August 30 to September 2 where he met with senior U.S. officials in Washington D.C. and visited the chemical weapons storage depot and destruction facility in Blue Grass, Kentucky.

OPCW Director-General, Ambassador Ahmet Üzümcü, visited the chemical weapons storage depot and destruction facility in Blue Grass, Kentucky during his visit to the United States August 30 to September 2, 2010.

Col. Gerald Gladney hands off the Deseret Chemical Depot (DCD) flag during the change-of-command ceremony on July 22, 2010. The ceremony was the last change of command for the DCD.

Employees cheer at the Deactivation Ceremony for the Newport Chemical Depot (NECD) on June 17, 2010, marking the successful completion of the facility’s mission.

Under Secretary of State Ellen O. Tauscher Addressing the States Parties of the Biological Weapons Convention in December 2009

H.E. Ambassador Ahmet Üzümcü, Permanent Representative of Turkey to the United Nations Office in Geneva, who has been recommended by the OPCW’s Executive Council for appointment as the OPCW’s next Director-General (OPCW photo)

The U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) recently hosted a ceremony marking the completion of 100 industry inspections under the CWC, a milestone in the on-site verification of non-proliferation. Assistant Secretary Christopher Wall (right) presents a commemorative plaque noting the achievement to Julius Kozma of the OPCW. (Photo courtesy of www.cwc.gov. )

Flowers laid at the Remembrance Day for All Victims of Chemical Warfare memorial site

Pisces V, one of the two University of Hawaii submersibles being used to locate chemical weapons in the ocean.

A vial containing less than 1 milliliter of mustard agent i s prepared for analysis. (Photo courtesy of U.S. Army)

OPCW Director-General Rogelio Pfirter (first from left) and the mayor of The Hague, Mr. van Aartsen, are among the visitors examining OPCW equipment during Open Day on the occasion of the UN Day of Peace, 21 September 2008.

Former Fort Detrick bioweapons researchers view old photographs at the reunion for the group

Two interceptor missiles launched in a test of the Aegis ballistic missile defense system on June 5, 2008. The target was the type of missile that could carry chemical or biological weapons.

His Excellency Mr. Waleed Ben Abdel Karim El Khereiji of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Chairperson of the Second Review Conference of the CWC

An operator inspects piping at the Newport VX Production Facility at Newport Chemical Depot, Indiana. Destruction of the facility included decontaminating and dismantling buildings, equipment, storage tanks and pipe racks. (Photo courtesy U.S. Army)

An operator inspects piping at the Newport VX Production Facility at Newport Chemical Depot, Ind. Destruction of the facility included decontaminating and dismantling buildings, equipment, storage tanks and pipe racks. (Photo courtesy U.S. Army)

Binary munitions being loaded by forklift.

On November 17, 2003, the last VX agent-filled M55 rocket at the Tooele Chemical Agent Disposal Facility entered the rocket shear machine inside the Explosive Containment Room

Tooele Chemical Agent Disposal Facility workers load the final VX agent-filled M55 Rocket onto the processing line for destruction on Nov. 17, 2003.

Sarin nerve agent-filled 105 mm artillery shells are safely stored in earth-covered "igloos" at Anniston Army Depot, Ala. Source: U.S. Department of Defense, http://www.defenselink.mil 9 August 2005

Final former production facility building destroyed at Pine Bluff Arsenal. Source: U.S. Army Chemical Materials Agency, http://www.cma.army.mil

Elements of the Army Reserve's 357th, 366th and 401st Chemical companies conduct decontamination and treatment operations for simulated casualties at Fort McCoy. This was part of Operation Red Dragon, a joint civilian-military exercise to test coordinated responses to a simulated nuclear and chemical bomb attack. By Staff Sgt. Brian D. Lehnhardt. Source: Army Images, The United States Army (www.army.mil), 1 September 2005.

This anteroposterior x-ray reveals a bilaterally progressive plague infection involving both lung fields. The first signs of plague are fever, headache, weakness, and rapidly developing pneumonia with shortness of breath, chest pain, cough, and sometimes bloody or watery sputum, eventually progressing for 2 - 4 days into respiratory failure and shock. Provided by Dr. Jack Poland. Courtesy of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Department of Health and Human Services.

Workers at Deseret Chemical Depot in Tooele, Utah, prepare a pallet of M55 VX Nerve Agent-filled Rockets for transport from DCD's chemical agent storage area to the nearby Tooele Chemical Agent Disposal Facility for destruction. DCD's inventory of more than 7,800 rockets were safely destroyed in 2003. Courtesy of Deseret Chemical Depot.

Members of the Missouri National Guard's new CERFP spray a "victim" of a toxic chemical attack during an Army evaluation of the team's ability to deal with a weapon of mass destruction near Jefferson City on July 24. (Master Sgt. Bob Haskell, 8/16/04)

NERVE AGENT DESTRUCTION: David Ardoin, an operator for Parsons Infrastructure and Technology Group Inc. demonstrates the enclosed CHATS system where the nerve agent VX is drained from the one-ton containers to begin the process of chemically neutralizing the stockpile at the Newport Chemical Depot in Newport, Ind. (AP/file photo, in the Terre Haute Tribune Star)

Shown above is an anthrax culture. A tough protective coat allows the bacteria to survive for decades in spore form. To find out more about anthrax, click here (USAMRIID photo, U.S. Army Medical Department - AMEDD)

In a photo released by the Central Intelligence Agency a total of 97 vials, date and location unknown, including those with labels consistant with the al Hakam cover stories of single-cell protein and biopesticides, as well as strains that could be used to produce BW agents, were recovered from a scientist's residence, according to the CIA. (AP Photo/CIA, HO)

Japanese experts handle a bomb containing toxic gas in Shijiazhuang, central Hebei Province. The Japanese experts arrived on September 6 to treat 52 bombs which were found in 1991. (REUTERS/China Photo)

Bunkers containing chemical weapons, at right along the horizon, are in close proximity to the Umatilla Army Depot chemical weapons incinerator as its' construction continues near Hermiston, Ore., Aug. 3, 2000. Army contractor, Raytheon Company, has settled a lawsuit by construction workers sickened while building the incinerator. (AP Photo/Don Ryan)

U.S. chemical experts of the 101st Airborne Division, Capt. Bryon Galbraith, Sgt. 1st Class Michael Murry, and Sgt. 1st Class Luis Vega, examine a suspicious pod that may have been intended as a delivery system for a chemical biological agent, inside the al-Kindi rocket and missile research center near Mosul on May 9, 2003. U.S. forces in northern Iraq found a suspected mobile biological weapons production laboratory in the compound that a top commander described on Tuesday as almost identical to another found nearby last month. (REUTERS/US Army/Robert Woodward)

U.S. forces in Iraq have found a trailer used by the toppled government of President Saddam Hussein as a mobile biological weapons laboratory, a Pentagon official said May 7, 2003. Members of a mobile exploitation team examining a suspected mobile biological weapons facility that was recovered by US Forces in northern Iraq . The trailer resembles one of the mobile laboratories described by US Secretary of State Colin Powell on 5 February 2003.(AFP/DOD)

U.S. special forces personnel display a paper giving guidelines on how to prepare chemical and biological weapons after searching through a house believed to belong to the Iraqi Ministry of Inteligence in Baghdad's district of Kazemiya.

An Iraqi looks at the rusted remains of Iraqi missile heads at Aziziyah, south of Baghdad, 27 February 2003. Baghdad showed U.N. weapons inspectors the remains of the missile heads, saying they contained biological weapons before the Iraqi military destroyed them in 1991 in accordance with U.N. resolutions.

During World War II, the fear of potential gas use spurred the production of gas masks for children. In Britain, these gas masks were brightly colored and called "Mickey Mouse" gas masks to make the mask less frightening to children. Later, Walt Disney helped design a mask that looked more like the cartoon character. Only 1,000 such Mickey Mouse masks were produced

"Electronmicrograph of Yersinia pestis bacteria. In November 2002, two New Yorkers, returning from a vacation in New Mexico were admitted to a NY hospital with plague. To find out more about the bacteria dubbed "The Black Death" in Medieval Europe, click here."

OPCW Director General Pfirter with U.S. Senator Richard Lugar, who was voted "2009 Arms Control Person of the Year" in an online poll conducted by the Arms Control Association (ACA).