U.S. and Russia press Syria, but are slow to destroy their own chemical weapons

As the Obama administration presses the United Nations this week to rid Syria of its chemical weapons, it faces the stark reality that the United States has failed to meet a 2012 deadline to destroy its remaining arsenal and has never pressured its closest Middle East ally, Israel, to sign the treaty banning such weapons.

The United States possesses some 3,000 metric tons of chemical weapons. Although 90 percent of the stockpile declared by Washington upon signing the weapons ban in 1993 has been destroyed, efforts to neutralize the remaining munitions have slowed to a trickle in recent years.

Russia, meanwhile, has destroyed 60 percent of its declared stockpile and has some 16,000 metric tons left to be neutralized, according to a November report by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons — the Netherlands-based body that oversees the ban treaty.

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