How many "weapons of mass destruction" does the USA possess?

Hi asciiquestion, and thanks for the question,

Firstly we need to define what "weapons of mass destruction" actually
means:

"The most widely used definition of "weapons of mass destruction" in
official U.S. documents is "nuclear, chemical, and biological
weapons."
http://www.nti.org/f_wmd411/f1a1.html

According to the "Global Security Institute"
"The United States has a nuclear arsenal of 10,500 nuclear weapons."
http://www.gsinstitute.org/archives/000082.shtml

However:
"-- As of January 1998, the U.S. had eliminated more than 900 heavy
bombers and missile launchers, which carried over 4,000 accountable
warheads. The physical destruction of strategic systems -- blowing up
ICBM silos, and slicing apart heavy bombers and ballistic missile
submarines -- is real disarmament, not just empty rhetoric."
http://www.fas.org/nuke/control/fmct/docs/98062502_ppo.html

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With regard to chemical, and biological weapons:

"Between May 1971 and May 1972 all U.S. stockpiles of bioweapons were
destroyed."
http://americaonalert.com/

However:
"May 13 1991 [C] The Bush Administration announces that U.S.
stockpiles of both binary and unitary chemical weapons (CW) will be
destroyed when the CWC is implemented."
http://www.nti.org/f_wmd411/1991.html

The CWC refered to above:
"1993 Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production,
Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on Their Destruction
(CWC): The CWC prohibits the development, production, stockpiling,
transfer, and use of chemical weapons."
http://www.nti.org/f_wmd411/f1b2_1.html#cwc

The United States of America "deposited" their agreement to the
convention on the 25th of April 1997, with the following reservation:
"Subject to the condition which relates to the Annex on Implementation
and Verification, that no sample collected in the United States
pursuant to the Convention will be transferred for analysis to any
laboratory outside the territory of the United States."
http://disarmament.un.org/TreatyStatus.nsf

Chemical weapons in the USA. as at March 20, 1997
"In the U.S., stockpiles of these weapons are located in eight states:
Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Oregon, and
Utah"
http://dosfan.lib.uic.edu/acda/ngo1.htm

"Destruction of U.S. stockpiles of chemical agents,including Lewisite,
was mandated by the Chemical WeaponsConvention to take place before
April 2007"
http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/mmgd1.pdf

So whilst the USA certainly has substantial numbers of nuclear
weapons, the status of biological and chemical weapons is a little
more obscure.  Even if the USA did have any biological and chemical
weapons, the details would be Top Secret.

I hope this sheds some light on the subject for you, and if you have
any queries about my answer please do not hesitate to ask fo
clarification.

THX1138

Search strategies included:
"us stockpiles of"
://www.google.com/search?q=%22us+stockpiles+of%22&hl=pt&lr=&ie=UTF-8&as_qdr=all&start=20&sa=N

" has biological and chemical"
://www.google.com/search?q=%22+has+biological+and+chemical%22&hl=pt&lr=&ie=UTF-8&as_qdr=all&start=40&sa=N

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Clarification of Answer by thx1138-ga on 10 Sep 2002 15:11 PDT

Thank you for the nice comments and rating.

Another site that you might of interest:

http://www.fas.org/nuke/control/index.html

Best Regards

THX1138

Good research and links for further reading.  Job well done!  Speedy
too!  Thank you.