Arms destruction to resume:

The Anniston nerve gas incinerator is expected to start destroying weapons today, following a break to retool the plant to handle artillery instead of rockets. The Army finished destroying 42,762 sarin-loaded rockets at the end of October and announced Wednesday it was ready resume its campaign to destroy sarin weapons at the Anniston Army Depot.

The incinerator staff will begin destroying 8-inch, sarin-filled projectiles that weigh about 200 pounds each. The Army began more than a year ago to destroy more than 660,000 weapons armed with sarin, mustard agent and VX that have been stored at the depot since the beginning of the Cold War. Under an international treaty, the United States is required to destroy all such chemical weapons. Destroying artillery is expected to take most of 2005.

The Army estimates it will finish in 2010 destroying the 4 million pounds of chemical agent that remain in bunkers at the depot.

--Katherine Bouma