In addition to being time-consuming, it’s costly:
[R]emember that chemical weapons destruction is not just a domestic pursuit. Overseas, the United States has spent $13 billion since 1992 on the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program (CTR), which works with former Soviet states on securing and dismantling nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. $1 billion of this went to just one project—the Shchuch’ye Russia chemical weapons destruction facility—which has since eliminated more than 2,365 metric tons of chemical weapons.
Still, it’s cheap when compared to actual war:
We spent at one point $10 billion per month during the Iraq War, which was fought over the illusion of WMDs. And in Syria, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey said, “Thousands of special operations forces and other ground forces would be needed to assault and secure critical sites…Costs could also average well over $1 billion per month.” So destroying all of Syria’s actual chemical weapons for something in the neighborhood of a few billion dollars would be a fantastic financial bargain.
Elsewhere, Megan Garber walks through how to dismantle a chemical bomb.
The Dish 