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Gulf War Syndrome
by Dennis Bernstein
The Pentagon denies that U.S. soldiers were exposed to chemical
and biological warfare agents during the Gulf war, but its own
records contradict the official line.
Spec. 1st Class Dean Lundholm, of the National Guard's 649th
Military Police Company, was assigned to guard duty at the Hafar
Al Batin POW camp near the Iraq-Kuwait border. He was in the
shower when the Scud landed. Amid the wail of activated chemical
warfare alarms, he dashed naked, holding his breath, through the
open air to where his protective gear was stored. Soon after, he fell
into a three-day coma. Now he is diagnosed as having Gulf War
Syndrome.
Lundholm came home to a
blaze of post-war hyperpatriotism and technophilia, as the allied
powers gloated over among many other things their astoundingly
low casualty figures. The number tossed around at the time was
indeed minuscule: about 150 dead for the allies, contrasted against
as many as 100,000 Iraqi corpses.
Yet now, four years after war's end, the euphoria seems premature.
Tens of thousands of Gulf War personnel have come down with
one or more of a number of disabling and life-threatening medical
conditions collectively known as Gulf War Syndrome (GWS). The
syndrome's cause is unclear, but veterans and researchers have
focused on the elements of a toxic chemical soup in the war zone
that includes insecticides, pesticides, various preventive medicines
given experimentally to GIs, and smoke from the burning oilfields
of Iraq and Kuwait.
There is also reliable evidence that one of its causes is exposure to
low levels of chemical and biological warfare (CBW) agents during
the war. According to a variety of sources, including just
declassified Marine Corps battlefield Command Chronologies and After
Action Reports, widespread exposure to CBW agents occurred when U.S.-led
forces bombed Iraqi chemical facilities, and during direct attacks by
the Iraqis.
And while numerous sources, including military documents, link
GWS to those exposures, the U.S. defense establishment doesn't
want to talk about it. Its policy of denial is making it substantially
harder for Gulf War veterans to receive diagnoses that include all
the probable toxins and their possible synergistic effects.
THE OFFICIAL LINE
Despite mounting evidence, Pentagon denials continue. In sworn
testimony before Congress in March, Dr. Stephen Joseph, Assistant
Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, stuck to the Department of
Defense (DoD) position. There is no persuasive evidence of such
exposures [to CBW agents], he said, even after much scrutiny.
Joseph's comments echo those made last year by Defense Secretary
William Perry and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman John
Shalikashvili that there is no information,classified or unclassified,
that indicated chemical or biological weapons were used in the
Persian Gulf.
More recently, former Dep. Sec. of Defense (and now newly
confirmed Dir. of Central Intelligence) John Deutch, the DoD's
point man on the Gulf War Syndrome, restated the government's
line: [W]ith the help of an independent panel, [I] examined those
instances where there are allegations of use or presence [of CBW
agents], and it is my judgment at the present
time that there has been no use or presence, but that judgment is
amenable to change if further information comes up.
During the confirmation hearings, Sen. Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.)
grilled Deutch on comments he made on 60 Minutes that no
widespread use had been detected, seemingly suggesting that some
use had occurred. But Deutch quickly closed that door, accusing 60
Minutes of misleading the public with editing tricks. I attach no
particular significance to use of that word [widespread use]. `No
use' would be equallyaccurate from my point of view. Kerrey again
queried Deutch. And you have no evidence at this point that there
was any kind of use or presence of CBW during that 42-day
period? That's correct, Deutch said. The CIA, Deutch's new
fiefdom, climbed on board the day before Deutch's hearing began,
announcing that nothing has yet surfaced that leads CIA to disagree
with the Department of Defense conclusion that chemical weapons
were not used during the Gulf War. But former Senator Don Riegle
(D-Mich.), whose Senate Banking Committee held extensive
hearings and issued two reports on GWS, said the denials don't
wash. According to Riegle, British and U.S. troops made at least 21
positive tests for the agents, and he accused the U.S. military of a
cover-up:
"These Department of Defense explanations are inconsistent with
the facts as related by the soldiers who were present, and with
official government documents prepared by those who were present
and with experts who have examined the facts. ... To my mind,
there is no more serious crime than an official military cover-up of
facts that could prevent more effective diagnosis and treatment of
sick U.S. veterans.
EVIDENCE OF CBW EXPOSURE
Riegle is not alone. Evidence
of CBW exposure during the war is abundant and mounting. In
response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by the
Gulf War Veterans of Georgia, in January the Pentagon released 11
pages of previously classified Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical
Incident (NBC) logs prepared by aides
to Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, commander of coalition forces
during the war. The NBC log excerpts, which cover only seven days
of the war, document dozens of chemical incidents. They also
reveal chemical injuries to U.S. GIs, discoveries of Iraqi chemical
munitions dumps, fallout from allied bombing of Iraqi chemical
supply dumps, and chemical attacks on Saudi Arabia.
I think this is a very powerful piece of evidence, said ex-Sen.
Riegle, about the released logs. Why did they hide it from us?
Did it now get out in a purposeful way or did it get out by
accident?...They [the Pentagon] did not respond honestly and
truthfully to my requests. It's obvious the mistakes made during the
war were serious. It's obviously too damaging to too many people's
reputations here, Riegle said.
The Riegle committee itself developed strong evidence that
exposures took place. James J. Tuite, III, chief investigator for the
committee's two-year study of GWS and U.S.-Iraqi trade policies,
says: talked about alarms sounding continuously during war, and in
fact some units had complained about the alarms sounding so much
that they received instructions to take the batteries out or to disable
them."
"After a while, units stopped going to MOPP [protective dress]
when these alarms would go off because they were being told that it
was because of traces of nerve agent in the air but not enough to
hurt you; we have since learned that the amount of nerve agent that
is capable of hurting someone is one one-thousandth of the amount
required to set off that alarm over an extended period. In other
words, had they been exposed to very low levels over the period of
the war, there was a possibility that they could suffer serious
injury. What we are seeing is probably the result of not taking
those alarms seriously.
Tuite says testing carried out in the field was sophisticated and
highly reliable. Many chemical specialists have come forward,
reporting that they detected chemical agents
and that their detections were backed up by a number of
techniques, said Tuite. Not only were the ionization alarms
sounding, but they used chemical reaction devices which confirmed
the presence of agents, and mass spectrometry devices that also
confirmed the presence of agents. In fact, Czech, French, British,
and U.S. commanders publicly reported those detections.
Recently released Marine Corps battlefield reports confirm scores
of CBW incidents during the ground war. One report notes that on
February 24, 1991, the "513th Military Intelligence Brigade U.S.
Army confirms the use of anthrax at King Khalid Military City.
Method of delivery unknown. Another entry, a February 25 After
Action Report from the 1st Marine Division says, Fox vehicles
detected and identified Lewicite [chemical nerve] agent, which
could have resulted from an Iraqi attack or been exploded by our
own artillery fire, thus causing secondary explosions.
Army documents validate the exposure claims. In an internal memo,
Army Maj. Gen. Ronald R.Blanck, commander of Walter Reed
Army Medical Center, strongly supported contentions that CBW agents
were present in the Gulf: Conclusions: Clearly, chemical warfare agents
were detected and confirmed during the war. It cannot be ruled out that
[CBW agents] could have contributed to the illness in susceptible
individuals.
Reports from VA doctors also contradict the Pentagon line. Charles
Jackson, M.D., Environmental Physician at the VA hospital in
Tuskegee, Alabama, described one patient with classic GWS
symptoms and noted that [h]e was a member of Construction
Battalion 24 which was stationed at Al Jubayl in the Gulf. We have
given him the diagnosis of [GWS] and Chemical-Biological warfare
exposure. He had none of these symptoms prior to the Gulf.
A GIFT FROM THE ENEMY
Numerous reports from the field also cite the presence of CBW
agents. In August 1991, Capt. Michael F. Johnson of the 54th
Chemical Troop of the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment was briefed
at the U.S. embassy in Kuwait and ordered to lead a mission to
confirm the presence of a suspect liquid chemical agent that had
been discovered on August 5 by British Royal engineers while
clearing unexploded ordnance left [by the Iraqis] at a girls' school
in southeastern Kuwait during a hasty retreat.
Johnson later reported that tests on the suspect chemical detected
and identified highly concentrated H-Agent, an extremely toxic and
volatile mustard gas agent. Coalition soldiers did experience
exposure to Iraqi chemical agents, he concluded. British troops also
reported CBW attacks. Corp. Richard Turnbull, an 18-year vet,
built NBC shelters, and instructed British troops in the use of
chemical monitoring and protective clothing.
Corp. Turnbull had been based in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, during
the Gulf War, and was present on January 20, 1991, during an Iraqi
Scud missile attack. Within seconds of the warhead landing, every
chemical-agent monitoring device in the area was blasting the
alarm, he said. We were put into the highest alert for twenty
minutes, he added, and then we were told it was a false alarm
caused by the fuel from aircraft taking off Turnbull himself carried
out two residual vapor detection tests for CBW agents shortly after
the Scud hit and both were positive. Turnbull, who has since
suffered from what the British call Desert Fever, believes his test
results were correct. We were always told that there was a 99.999
percent possibility of a chemical attack. We were expecting it. That
was in our intelligence briefing. `Inevitable' was the word used.
And now they deny it, said Turnbull. Iraqi documents captured by
U.S. and British forces bolster the information in NBC logs and the
on-the-scene accounts, as do reliable reports by U.S., British, and
Czech chemical weapons specialists deployed in Iraq and Kuwait
after the war. They found chemical munitions, including bulk
agents, behind Iraqi lines, including 28 chemical warfare heads
subsequently destroyed by the U.N.
The captured documents contain orders to use chemical weapons.
British intercepts of Iraqi communications during the war also
revealed that the Iraqis were planning to use the weapons when the
ground war began. Captured Iraqi prisoners of war told the British
substantial supplies of chemical weapons were deployed and used
in the Gulf War.
BLOWBACK
Because of overwhelming allied ground and air superiority, Iraqi
attacks were limited and sporadic. Even after all the reports of
exposure to CBW agents after Scud landings are tallied, they fail to
account for other exposures, many of which came as a direct result
of allied bombings of Iraqi chemical and biological production and
storage sites. According to Riegle, his two-year study identified 18
chemical, 12 biological, and four nuclear facilities in Iraq bombed by
the U.S.-led allied forces. Debris from the bombings was dispersed into
upper atmospheric currents, as shown in U.S. satellite photos, as
well as in videotape obtained by Congress. This airborne dispersal
came down on the heads of allied personnel in Saudi Arabia,
Kuwait, and Iraq. Official documents show weather patterns over
Iraq that carried chemical fallout to coalition troop positions. So do
U.N. assessments of damage done to well-stocked Iraqi chemical
storage facilities.
Reports from the recently released NBC logs, written following
allied bombings of Iraqi chemical supply dumps, support this
position. One entry reads: Lt. Col. [Vicki] Merriman called. Report
from Army Central Command forward. Czechoslovakian recon
report detected GA/GB (mustard gases). And that hazard is flowing
down from factory storage bombed in Iraq. Predictably, this has
become/is going to become a problem. Sandia, Los Alamos, and
Livermore National Laboratories were consulted or prepared
reports on the danger of chemical fallout from the bombings.
Former Soviet CBW expert Ivan Yevstafyevwarned that strikes on
chemical and biological weapons facilities in Iraq's territory could
rebound on us and cause damage to the population of our country.
Gen. Raymond Germanos, a spokesperson for the French Ministry
of Defense, confirmed in February 1991 the presence of chemical
fallout from allied bombings, probably neurotoxins...a little bit
everywhere. And in July 1993, the Czech Defense Ministry said it
was able to irrefutably confirm traces of chemical warfare agents,
including the deadly nerve agents sarin and Yperite.
WE DON'T WANT TO HEAR IT
The cover-up is being compounded by a growing body of evidence
that the military has harassed and mistreated Gulf veterans for
reporting ill-effects from CBW exposures. Navy Reserve Capt.
Julia Dyckman of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, a 27-year veteran with
service in Vietnam, Panama and the Gulf, was a nursing supervisor
in a 500-bed field hospital in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where she
oversaw thousands of GI patients. We treated people,
but none of them for chemical illnesses, said Dyckman, because we
were told there were no chemicals. So if somebody came in with
[conditions] like what I had, open sores, which I think was from a
blister agent, we didn't treat them for that. Dyckman said she was
told the blisters and festering open sores were from desert sand.
Dyckman ran into problems with the Navy when she was asked to
serve on a REDCOM 4 (Readiness Command) committee to
welcome back the returning veterans. When I started interviewing
people, they were complaining of the same illnesses that were plaguing me,
so I started documenting the complaints, she said. When she started
reporting back to REDCOM's Capt. Brian Silk, he filed negative
and harassing reports, and removed her from the REDCOM payroll.
Members of National Guard units may have been discharged for
complaining about illnesses. A Guard memo reviewing medical
records for its Gulf veterans concluded that the VA had
inadequately addresse[d] vague and undiagnosed illnesses resulting
from exposure to environmental hazards and that several hundred
National Guard soldiers, ordered to Desert Storm/Shield Active
Duty, incurred medical conditions in the line of duty and were
erroneously released from that duty.
On occasion, supposed DoD concern about vets turned into
browbeating. Lt. Col. Vicki Merriman, an aide to the Deputy
Assistant Secretary of Defense for Chemical and Biological
Matters, and who appears in the NBC logs reporting on CBW
alerts, contacted veterans after they appeared before the Riegle
committee. Among them was former U.S. Army Sgt. Randall L.
Vallee. Vallee served as an advance scout and has been afflicted by
a half-dozen serious medical conditions which began following
Scud attacks that set off chemical monitors. Merriman called him
after he testified about what he believed to be his exposure to CBW
agents.
She asked me about my health and my family, said Vallee. But after
some small talk...the Colonel's attitude turned from one of being concerned
about my well-being to an interrogator trying to talk me out of my
own experiences. Vallee added that Merriman claimed there was
absolutely no way that any soldiers in the Gulf were exposed to
anything. Vallee quotes Merriman as saying, the only ones whining
about problems are American troops; why aren't any of our allies?
In fact, they are, and they are getting the same treatment. Wendy
Morris co-directs the Gloucester, England-based Trauma After Care
Trust (TACT), a private organization that assists sick British Gulf
veterans. Morris said TACT has been contacted by hundreds of British
veterans who claim to be afflicted with war-related medical conditions.
We can assume it's only the tip of the iceberg, said Morris. Until
recently, they've been very reticent about coming forward, because
they're worried about their careers, postings, pensions, and what
have you, but there are gradually more coming out of the woodwork
because they are so sick and needy.
The British soldiers have received unsympathetic responses from
their superiors. They're called weak and wimps, told they haven't
got any guts, no moral fiber, that sort of thing. They tell them it's all
psychological, Morris added. The latest development is that
anybody who has got these problems, which `had nothing to do
with the Gulf,' of course, must be seen by a military specialist for
tests.
Now, a lot of men and women have gone for these tests, but
nothing has come out of it. They've had blood tests, urine tests, the
usual sorts of testing, but no treatment.
MISSING RECORDS
Part of the problem in determining the causes and scope of GWS is
a lack of records, and it is occurring throughout the armed forces.
Some records may have been lost or destroyed through
incompetence or negligence, but the military is deliberately
suppressing important information as well.
In response to the Gulf War Veterans of Georgia FOIA request, Lt.
Gen. Richard I. Neal, Deputy Commander of the U.S. Central
Command, cited national security in refusing to release NBC logs.
Portions of this [NBC] log contain material which is properly
classified pursuant to an executive order in the interest of national
defense. Accordingly, your request is denied in part.
Two months later, the military admitted destroying some NBC logs.
In reply to the same FOIA request, Anthony Stepleton, a civilian
aide to Forces Command commander Gen. Dennis Reimer, revealed
that the Army's 1st Cavalry Division...NBC logs [were] destroyed,
and that NBC logs from the Army Central Command, the 3rd
Army, and other units may have been destroyed as well. The Marine
Corps is also implicated. Two marines stationed at Camp
Pendleton, near San Diego, former Cpl. Patrick Weissenfluh and
Sgt. Todd See, reported seeing hundreds of records from the Gulf
War being destroyed. They had a trash can that they were
dumping...the medical records in and burning them, said See. Such
incidents may reflect Marine Corps concerns about future claims
related to GWS. One Marine Corps internal document says:
"Several sources have suggested that the documentation of
exposure to smoke within the geographical boundaries of Kuwait
should be placed in members' health records. Placing such
information could wrongly imply possible health problems in the
future, while all the information to date suggests no health hazard
exists. Unless there are current health complaints, there is no
reason to make health record entries."
And in response to the FOIA request from the Gulf War Veterans
of New England that resulted in the recent partial release of Marine
Corps battlefield reports, the Marines noted:
We have determined thatportions of the information are exempt
from release. Other documents have been withheld in their entirety.
The Navy has also been accused of mishandling Gulf War medical
records. Navy personnel say that in November 1991, the Navy
removed records from the medical files of sailors with GWS.
Sailors claim these records prove they were exposed to CBW
agents in the Gulf. Navy Captain Julia Dyckman tells a similar tale.
We kept statistical records and data that we sent to the Navy
Research Center in San Diego, but they said they never received
them, she said. We sent medical encounter sheets on the 10,000 we
saw over the period we were in Saudi Arabia, and they claim it
never arrived. Convenient, isn't it?
Dyckman now suffers from a variety of disabling medical
conditions and has tried without success to get her own records
from the Navy to assist her in seeking treatment. Dean Lundholm,
the soldier exposed running from the shower and now disabled
with GWS, lives with his sister Erika, his primary caregiver. Erika
Lundholm says the VA told her that all the medical records from
Dean's hospital stayin the Gulf are missing. We have repeatedly
requested those records and have yet to receive them.
Riegle committee chief investigator Tuite confirms that there is a
pattern of missing files and misplaced medical and service records.
We've received widespread reporting on that issue, he said, and
when we questioned the DoD on that issue, they just say that their
record-keeping process isn't very organized and that they just can't
find the records. But the fact of the matter is that medical files are
maintained on all personnel, and those files go with the personnel
as they travel from place to place, so I find it highly unusual that
the records are missing.
WHY DENY IT?
At first glance, it seems counterintuitive for the U.S. to downplay
CBW exposure, especially if it can be blamed on Saddam Hussein.
Yet there are good reasons for the U.S. government to stonewall.
To admit that CBW exposures occurred means the government
must address some uncomfortable issues, such as the
military's inability to protect U.S. forces from CBW agents. But
with U.S. troops possibly facing lingering contaminants as they
carry out training exercises in the region, silence could be deadly.
Equally embarrassing for the U.S. is the history of government and
corporate cooperation with Iraq in the 1980s. With the active
support of two presidents and many U.S. officials, U.S. and
Western European companies sold the technology to Iraq that may
now be making tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians ill.
In 1987, then Vice President George Bush met with Iraqi
Ambassador Nizar Hamdoom and assured him that Iraq could
continue to purchase sensitive dual use technology from the U.S.
Senior Bush administration officials continued this policy, despite
opposition from within the administration and Congress, and
despite clear evidence the Iraqis were actively working on the
development of nuclear and chemical weapons.
In the five years leading up to the Gulf War, the Commerce
Department licensed more than $1.5 billion of strategically
sensitive U.S. exports to Iraq, from companies such as Hewlett-
Packard, Honeywell, Rockwell, and Tektronix. Many of these dual
use exports were delivered directly to chemical and nuclear plants
in Iraq. The Riegle committee found that some of the materials the
Iraqis had in their storage dumps, and which they used to create
their CBW capability, came from U.S. corporations.
By the time of the invasion of Kuwait, the Pentagon knew Iraq had
developed CBW weapons and that its biological warfare program
was the most advanced in the Arab world. Large-scale production
of these agents began in 1989 at four facilities near Baghdad, and
Iraq had developed delivery systems, including aerial bombs,
artillery, rockets, and surface-to-surface missiles. A more prosaic
contribution to the cover-up probably resides in the military
bureaucracy's eternal instinct to cover itself in the face ofany
problem or scandal.
In an attempt to get at the source of their medical problems, and as
a way to sidestep prohibitions against suing the government for
injuries resulting from exposure to CBW weapons, veterans filed a
billion-dollar class action lawsuit against the companies including
Bechtel, M.W. Kellogg, Dresser Industries, and Interchem Inc. that
peddled these deadly technologies to Iraq. The suit, filed last
November in federal court in Galveston, Texas, could break new
ground, holding companies liable in cases in which third parties use
their products to cause bodily harm or death. Vic Silvester of Odessa, Texas,
is a plaintiff in the suit. His 24-year-old son James was deployed near
Scud missile attack sites, and he now suffers a variety of disabling
medical conditions including nerve damage, rashes, severe
headaches, and chronic fatigue. He can't sleep. He goes to the store
and can't remember what to get, Silvester says of his son. And he
gets no disability. The companies that made the chemical-
biologicals should pay.
While it is at least theoretically possible to hold corporations
accountable, the government and the military are legally immune
from financial liability. But the potential political liabilities are
enormous. Admitting that the U.S. role in arming Iraq eventually
resulted in U.S. veterans suffering the torments of exposure to
debilitating toxins is a prospect the Pentagon is so far unwilling to
face.
UNANSWERED QUESTIONS
John Deutch's continuing denials of CBW exposure in the face of now
considerable evidence to the contrary ring hollow. They also raise
concerns that his promises, so well-received on Capitol Hill, to
make the CIA accountable are similarly suspect. Based on what we
know today, said Riegle committee investigator Tuite, DoD
withheld information from the Congress, and Deutch has said he
was the responsible person there. There are laws that make it illegal
to withhold information from Congress. And if the DoD has done it
on this issue, he continued, I don't believe we can afford to have the
CIA feeling as though they can withhold information from
Congress. Congress has a constitutional responsibility to make sure
that the laws are being followed.
Gulf War veterans groups remain frustrated. They accuse Deutch of
being actively engaged in a cover-up of the presence and exposure
of chemical and biological warfare agents. What we have is the man
who's the number two person at the Department of Defense
intentionally or by mismanagement covering up documents or lying
about them on television, said Paul Sullivan, president of Gulf War
Veterans of Georgia, the group that obtained the NBC logs. What
we want to know is this: What is Mr. Deutch hiding? How much
more is there in terms of documents that the DoD is not releasing?
What effect does this have on our vulnerability to chemicals? What
does this say about the expendability of veterans' lives?
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