Gulf War Syndrome: Killing Our Own - Part 3
April 22, 2010 Depleted Uranium (continued)
The official count of the American dead since the second Gulf War began is approximately 2,350. The number of injured and seriously injured is over 20,000. Many of these people have been injured permanently. The piece of the puzzle that's missing, however, is that hundreds of thousands of vets from the first and second Gulf conflicts have come back home and are suffering from very unusual illnesses. These are illnesses that young healthy people simply never contract. When you look in their blood you're able to find types of microorganisms that were clearly weaponized. Finding weaponized microorganisms in the blood of our soldiers is a first in American history. The combined bacteria and viruses together to create mycoplasma that debilitates the immune system. How did the soldiers become infected? Why has our government lost 70,000 of their records, specifically those who had this special type of microorganism put into their bodies? Who authorized the use of these weapons? Why has the mainstream media been virtually silent on this? How many have died as a result of infection? Estimates are that as many as 15,000 to 20,000 have died. What would the American public think if on top of the 2,350 current dead in Iraq that there were another 20,000 dead from the first Gulf conflict? What if there were another 100,000 to 150,000 so debilitated and with their lives so diminished that they would be looked upon as victims of this war as well? The new figures would change our perspective. Whether we agree or disagree with the current presence of American soldiers in Iraq, we all agree that anyone who goes over deserves the best attention they can get. No one should come back after serving in the Gulf suffering from illnesses that our government denies they contracted, whether they're caused by depleted uranium, anthrax, or botulism vaccines. Our government is denying there is any such thing. As a result, these soldiers are going broke. They are dying in ways that you could not imagine.
In part I of this paper I discussed depleted uranium and why it is one of the most insidious ways to harm an individual. It not only affects our own allied forces, but it also affects the people who live in the Persian Gulf. A larger ethical question must be asked. What good does it do if we believe that we are bringing our form of democracy and then we create a country people can't live in because it's too polluted?
A Press release from the World Depleted (DU)/Uranium Weapons Conference in October, 2003, states, "The evidence coming from the scientists, health professionals and legal experts at this Conference is clear: DU is causing significant health effects worldwide, and it is illegal under existing international law and convention," concluded conference planner Marion Küpker, co-coordinator of the German anti-weapons group Gewaltfreie Aktion Atomwaffen Abschaffen (GAAA)." Now it's up to the activist community to force rogue governments like the US and Britain to observe international law the same way they preach it to other nations." [i]
In addition, depleted uranium has been studied as to its effects on the soil from munitions that are leaching into the surrounding environment. The National Research Center for Environment and Health found that, 'assuming that corrosion and leaching continue as observed, the mobilization of (238)U from DU munitions will last, on an average, for thousands of years in the soils investigated, while the munitions themselves will have been corroded after a much shorter time.'[ii]
In 1997, activist lawyer Karen Parker's testimony before the United Nations Commission on Human rights reported that 800 tons of depleted uranium were used in Gulf I, and that many spent shells still littered the ground in playgrounds and other areas where civilians would come into direct contact with the materials. [iii] Dr. Chris Busby, a radiation scientist from Britain, also feels that the use of depleted uranium is illegal. [iv]
Depleted uranium is not just a concern for the people who are directly exposed to it, but is also dangerous to their unborn progeny as well. A year 2005 review of the literature by the University of Massachusetts School of Public Health shows that people who have been exposed to depleted uranium are more likely to have children with birth defects. [v]
Scientist Helen Caldicott writes that DU, a by product of nuclear weapon production, is very dangerous because of its ability to insinuate itself into the environments not only of the soldiers involved, but in addition, its vapors dissolve into the surrounding air and water, reaching civilian populations: 'Children and babies are ten to twenty times more sensitive to the carcinogenic effects of ingested radiation than adults. Today, medical reports from Iraq indicate that childhood malignancies are seven times more than what they were before the war. That's a 700 percent increase. Also, DU has been shown to concentrate itself in the testes, disrupting sperm production and causing chromosomal damage, leading to very serious birth defects.' [vi]
Depleted uranium in combination with malnutrition has been shown to disrupt the important biochemical pathways in human gestation; monstrous fetuses born in Iraq between the start of the first Gulf War and the second illustrate our blatant disregard for the human players in this war. [vii]
When was the last time anyone in our Defense Department, the Pentagon, the White House, State Department, or CIA talked about the collateral damage from depleted uranium on the citizens? They have not, but there is one doctor who has.
The Downsized Doctors
Dr. Asaf Durakovic was a chief of nuclear medicine at the VA Medical Center in Wilmington, Delaware. After the first Gulf war, Dr. Durakovic tried to test members of the 144th Service and Supply Company for depleted-uranium contamination. This was a unit that had been salvaging equipment that had been hit by depleted-uranium rounds. Durakovic first tested the vets and concluded that 14 out of 24 were contaminated. But since his testing equipment was outdated, Durakovic proceeded to send urine samples from the vets to be tested at the U.S. Army Radiochemistry Laboratory in Aberdeen, Maryland.
This proved impossible. A number of the samples apparently never made it to the lab, and the ones that did were lost. What's more, the VA decided against further testing. Dr. Durakovic was told by both the VA and the Department of Defense to stop his depleted uranium investigation. Then, after eight years of outstanding performance at his VA position, he ended up losing his job " because of cutbacks." Meanwhile two of the vets exposed to uranium died. The Pentagon released a paper stating that uranium had not been proven to cause health problems, but Durakovic points out that they were looking for short-term, not long-term hazards. [viii] He also has stated that he feels certain that he was terminated from his job as a direct result of his involvement in the management of Gulf War veterans and because he raised nuclear safety issues.
Dr. Durakovic testified before a House of Representatives subcommittee in June 1997, estimating that 123,000 troops had been exposed to depleted uranium through contact with captured Iraqi tanks. " Those that were required to receive the vehicles actually lived very near them, ate lunch on top of them, and cooled themselves inside of them," he reported. "On Mar. 10, 1991, a battle damage assessment team dressed in full radio protective clothing arrived, stating that they were from Washington to assess the radioactivity of specific tanks. They reviewed the tanks for four days, fully dressed in 90-degree temperatures. At the conclusion of the assessment the soldier in charge of the crew which required to move the equipment was told that the tanks were 'hot,' was told to mark them with the atomic symbol, and not to let people go near them. The assessment team had detected 0.26 to 1.0 rad inside the tanks....The team stated that the tanks were not dangerous to those required to work in their environment. One soldier was given an outdated dosimeter, which began to detect radiation right away despite the fact that it was long past its expiration date....All work that was conducted on behalf of DU contamination was coordinated through the Persian Gulf Registry of the Wilmington VA hospital. All records were subsequently lost." [ix]
The Radiochemistry Lab in Aberdeen, Maryland, does admit to losing Dr. Durakovic's medical tests. What's more, Durakovic had also sought help from the Boston VA Medical Clinic. Two physicians from the Boston VA, Dr. Burroughs and Dr. Slingerland, asked for more sensitive equipment to better diagnose the 24 soldiers of the 144th Service and Supply Company who had been referred to them by Dr. Durakovic. The two lost their jobs.
These scientists got the message not to do this research. Why? Why were the Pentagon and the VA so afraid? What were the results that they were afraid would come from this investigation?
Concerning testing for exposure to depleted uranium, Dan Fahey, legal assistant and outreach worker at Swords to Plowshares, a San Francisco veterans service organization, brought up the point the urinalysis tests will give accurate results only if they're used within a year of exposure. That's because, for a year, the body naturally purges most of the uranium that's been inhaled or ingested, and after a year, although the substance remains in the bones, kidneys, and lungs, but it's not being excreted in the urine. Thus, today, this type of test is useless for soldiers who served more than a year ago. [x]
Fahey also described a 1991 incident in Kuwait during which troops were unknowingly exposed to depleted uranium:
"There was a fire in July 1991 in Doha, Kuwait, in which there were several thousand DU rounds that burned up in this very large fire. There were severe explosions for six hours. The fire raged until the following day. And through the Freedom of Information Act we learned that while this fire was going on there was an explosive ordnance disposal team that was rushed to the scene of the fire, but before they arrived they warned the commanders at the Doha base...that DU rounds were burning, that they should keep the people out of the downwind area, and that they should issue respiratory protection. And we also know that that message was never passed down to the troops. And as a result some people were exposed during the fire." [xi]
Fahey went on to explain that troops were exposed after the fire as well. Given no information about the presence of depleted uranium contamination, they were assigned to clean up the compound with brooms, shovels, and their hands, and were given no protection whatsoever.
According to the Depleted Uranium Education Project, [xii] " the fire at the U.S. Army Black Base in Doha, Kuwait, destroyed more than 660 large-caliber DU tank rounds, 9720 small-caliber DU rounds, and four M1A1 tanks with DU armor. Over 9,000 pounds of DU penetrators were lost in the fire, exposing thousands of vets to airborne uranium oxides. Despite the known health problems of vets, the U.S. Army's report on exposures to depleted uranium at Doha has not even been released to the Presidential Advisory Committee on Gulf War Illnesses, and U.S. troops continue to be stationed at Doha."
A Half-Decade of Cover-Up
From 1991 to 1996, the Pentagon basically took a see-no-evil approach regarding the causes of Gulf War Syndrome. In a document entitled "Memorandum for Persian Gulf Veterans," released on May 25, 1994, Defense Secretary William Perry and Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman General John Shalikashvili assured veterans that there was no evidence, classified or unclassified, suggesting that chemical or biological weapons were used in the Gulf, while a June 23, 1994, report by the Pentagon's science board attempted to reinforce that argument, asserting that servicemen were not exposed to chemical or biological elements at any level. During the initial stages of the Riegle investigation, Senator Riegle inquired as to the possibility that allied exposure to chemical and biological agents was responsible for the manifestation of post-war illnesses. Walter Reed's Major General Blanck responded that the issue had not been addressed because military intelligence maintained that such exposures never occurred.
But consider this: official documents that I've been able to obtain at Defense Department headquarters reveal that several American soldiers participating in Desert Storm were commended for their role in ascertaining the presence of hazardous chemical agents. For example, Army Private Allen Fisher was awarded the bronze star for the first confirmed detection of chemical-agent contamination in the theater of operations, while Captain Michael Johnson of the Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Branch of the Army was given the Meritorious Service Medal for a similar action. A question naturally arises as to why these men were commended for pointing out chemical-agent threats, if the powers that be really thought there weren't any! You're not going to give a medal to someone for detecting something that you say didn't exist.
On Oct. 8, 1994, Senator Riegle berated the Defense Department for its inconsistency after reviewing the Pentagon's service records and considering the accounts of soldiers who had witnessed the events in the Gulf first hand and had received official commendations for their heroic actions.
Fuzzy math currently may make it difficult to count who the dead and dying soldiers are in the current Gulf War in Iraq: Nearly 9,000 dead are being reported by The Baltimore Independent Media Center, rather than the official number which is currently over 2300 dead. [xiii] Karl Rove replied that the number was a hoax, but admitted that the number was probably higher than reported. An official government website reports 2269 dead and 16,1653 wounded as of 2006. [xiv]
None of these numbers, however, involves the number of dead and sick from Gulf War Syndrome.
A change in attitude by Congress was represented in the statement of Representative Lane Evans on the Floor of the House, February 26, 1998: The Persian Gulf Veterans Act of 1998 would assess the data available on the plight of veterans who return sick, and make specific recommendations as to the best course of action. [xv]
This act would allow scientists to treat the syndromes in an epidemiological fashion, taking the vets seriously, despite the fact that their illnesses might not be attributable to any one cause. [xvi]
This legislation was supported by 'The American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States, and the Vietnam Veterans of America.' [xvii]
Michael Woods, a veteran of Gulf War I, indicted the 1998 act in the following way: 'My doctor even refused to fill the prescriptions that have kept my illnesses from continuing to decline. There seems to be a break down between the spirit of the 1998 act what the VA doctors do at VA hospitals and clinics. When looking at VA claims and how the process works there is still much work to be done.' [xviii]
Presently, Gulf War One veterans only have seven years to prove a connection from their MS to their Gulf War Service, which is often too short a period for some vets who develop MS after the seven-year time limit. Why? Multiple sclerosis frequently takes longer than seven years after exposure to manifest. So if you were exposed to chemicals in the first Gulf War and it was eight years and then you got MS from that exposure, too bad. No help. A new bill proposed by Senator Patty Murray on December 21, 2005 would remove the seven-year time limit for MS illness reporting and take into account that the causes of MS are not necessarily traceable. [xix]
Other Countries' Experience
Lieutenant Louise Richard of the Canadian Navy served as an operating room nurse in the Gulf, where she treated numerous American and British servicemen, as well as Iraqi prisoners of war. In September 1995 Richard was discharged after eight years of lauded service because her health had deteriorated significantly subsequent to her overseas service. Richard's symptoms mimicked those of many other combat veterans, but when she complained to her superiors regarding the lack of acknowledgment of her combat-related illness and when she threatened to seek redress in the media, she was warned that she would be jeopardizing her career and her pension. " We were valued individuals when we were sent there," she says, but, " now we're back, and we're not valued individuals at all."
It's important to remember that United States troops have not been the only victims of governmental callousness. Other allied governments, including those of Canada, Great Britain, and Kuwait, also disavowed evidence of chemical and biological warfare for a long period. According to an Oct. 10, 1995, article in the British newspaper Today, the British Ministry of Defense instituted a policy of denying the existence of what is known in Britain as 'desert fever', for fear of big compensation claims. In an interview with the paper, a British Defense spokesperson alleged, " We have no evidence that this illness exists." This was an odd declaration when you consider that over 1000 of the 43,000 British veterans deployed to the Gulf reported that they were suffering from the syndrome.
Corporal Richard Turnball, an 18-year member of the Royal Air Force who participated in the Gulf conflict, asserts that a multitude of British veterans returned home suffering from various acute symptoms. Turnball, who was stationed in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, during the war, aided in the construction of nuclear, biological, and chemical shelters, and educated British troops as to the correct use of chemical monitors and protective gear. According to Corporal Turnball, the use of chemical and biological weapons by the Iraqis was deemed inevitable by British intelligence reports prior to the war. During the conflict, Turnball claims that the inevitable came to pass many times; he personally witnessed casualties suffering from chest and eye ailments, infections, and skin irritations. But despite a multitude of warnings and reliable documentation by highly advanced equipment, the British Ministry of Defense denied the incidences, asserting that the alarms were activated by aircraft fuel. That, of course, was never proven. What was proven by all the vets is that they were exposed to chemical and biological warfare, and they got sick. The British High Command, the British Prime Ministry, Tony Blair specifically denied that. They went against their own soldiers. It's rather interesting when Tony Blair stands side by side in the fight in Iraq, and yet will not stand side by side by his own soldiers when they are sick. No different than the first Bush, Bill Clinton, and the second Bush. At some point the American media and the American public should ask what about this hypocrisy.
Another British veteran, Corporal Terry Walker, whom I interviewed, recalled the sounding of chemical monitoring devices at approximately 2:30 a.m. on Jan. 20, 1991, after several Scud missiles exploded overhead. Military officials attempted to attribute the alarms and the explosions to supersonic aircraft, but Walker explains that their justification seemed ridiculous for two reasons: first, alarms within a 15-mile radius had been activated almost simultaneously, and second, the alarms had never been triggered by aircraft in the past. Corporal Walker, who had difficulty donning his gas mask during the attack, recalls experiencing an ammonia-like smell and a burning sensation on his body. Since his return from active service he has been plagued by a multitude of ailments, including chest infections, rashes, and headaches, and his wife and daughter have been afflicted as well.
According to the British Medical Association in 1996 a pilot study was conducted on 14 veterans, 12 men and two women, who had an average age of 34. These veterans, were randomly selected from a long list, and many had unexplained illnesses. They underwent a variety of tests, and the results were compared with those of a group of 13 healthy civilians. The tests included established techniques assessing nerve function in the limbs, transmission of impulses between nerves and muscles, and movement of nerve signals through pathways in the brain and spinal chord. The researchers concluded that there was evidence of problems in the nervous systems of the veterans, particularly in the nerves of the arms and legs. [xx]
Kuwaiti sources have also reported health problems since Gulf War I. At the Kuwaiti Ministry of Public Health, Dr. Saleh Al-Harbi verified that a significant number of Kuwaiti citizens were suffering from a variety of chronic illnesses evidently induced by exposure to either chemical or biological agents. Since the war's conclusion a variety of inexplicable diseases, such as rare blood disorders, and o birth defects increased dramatically. Dr. Al-Harbi, like many of his American peers, stated that the syndrome was a form of multiple chemical sensitivity. [xxi]
A Cover-Up Condemned
The Riegle report essentially accused the Department of Defense of lying to the American public, and it condemned the DoD for abandoning the servicemen who were willing to die for their country. Senator Riegle referred to the heartlessness and irresponsibility of the military bureaucracy, concluding that there is no more serious crime than a cover-up of facts that could facilitate the diagnosis and treatment of sick U.S. veterans. [xxii] The military establishment was fully aware that Saddam possessed biological weapons, that he was willing to use them, and, in fact, did use them. Despite concrete evidence, John Deutch, director of the CIA, and General John Shalikashvili, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, continued to deny the use of biological or chemical weapons by either side.
Proof contradicting the official government position existed in the Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical (NBC) logs maintained by General Schwarzkopf at Central Command. These records indicated that U.S. forces were able to confiscate chemical and biological weapons, and these records cited the specific days on which the acquisition of weapons took place. In addition, the NBC logs detailed plans for the destruction of the confiscated materials, and revealed that the military did not want to destroy the weapons in bulk; as such an action may have precipitated an international incident. Many of the NBC logs for the Gulf War were smuggled out of the Department of Defense by veterans, who were able to circulate them and prove to the public that the U.S. government had full knowledge of the presence of biological warfare agents in Iraq.
Unfortunately, assessment of the magnitude of Gulf War syndrome has been made more difficult by the military's uncanny ability to misplace essential information. While some of the documents may have been legitimately lost or misplaced, others seem to have been intentionally destroyed in an attempt to conceal information from the public. For instance, a request to view documents by the Gulf War Veterans of Georgia was rejected by Lieutenant Richard I. Neal, Deputy Commander of the U.S. Central Command, who justified his response by referring to the sanctity of our national security interests. Two months after the initial request was filed, additional inquiries to view the documents were also declined, but this time, veterans groups were informed that the documentation no longer existed.
All branches of the armed forces have been implicated in the destruction of vital records. Corporal Patrick Weissenfluh and Sergeant Todd See, two Marines who were stationed at Camp Pendleton, San Diego, witnessed the burning of hundreds of medical records, while Navy Captain Julia Dyckman experienced a similar situation, in which records sent overseas were mysteriously lost. Despite the excuses of faulty record keeping, Senator Riegle's investigative committee found the pattern of misplaced files and service records within the Department of Defense to be highly irregular. [xxiii]
In addition to exposing governmental negligence and illegal business activities, Senator Riegle's two-year study disclosed information pertaining to the 12 biological, 18 chemical, and four nuclear facilities within Iraq that were destroyed by coalition forces. After the attacks, atmospheric currents transported malignant airborne debris to the vicinity of Allied troops; this is documented in U.S. satellite photos. Prior to the destruction of Iraqi facilities, former Soviet chemical-biological warfare expert Ivan Yevstafyev, as well as scientists from several prominent laboratories, including Sandia, Los Alamos, and Livermore National Laboratories, warned of the danger of chemical fallout, but their advice was ignored. General Raymond Germanos of the French Ministry of Defense prepared a report that in February 1991 confirmed the presence of chemical fallout in the region, while in July 1993 a report by the Czech Ministry of Defense revealed traces of dangerous nerve gases, including sarin and Yperite. [xxiv] In a classified briefing on Oct. 28, 1993, the Pentagon acknowledged the Czech report, but refused to comment. After a few weeks of silence, Defense Secretary Les Aspin did finally accept the possibility of low-level exposure to mustard gas and sarin, but nevertheless maintained that a correlation still could not be established between chemical agent exposure and any of the ailments that had arisen in the approximately 9000 vets that had already registered with the VA for examination of their symptoms.
At a Senate Veterans Affairs Committee hearing shortly thereafter, Aspin's see-no-evil attitude was challenged by Chief Warrant Officer Joseph P. Cottrell of the Marine Corps. According to Cottrell, his unit, while in Kuwait, had employed a highly sophisticated German chemical detection vehicle known as the Fox, which had detected the release of a chemical agent capable of inducing severe blistering. The Department of Defense attempted to counter Cottrell by attributing the detection to the presence of airborne oil debris, but further investigation by Congressman Joseph Kennedy discredited the Pentagon's rebuttal by disproving the possibility of system malfunction.
A similar scenario was documented by Gulf veterans William Hicks and Sterling Sims of the Alabama National Guard in testimony before the Senate Armed Services subcommittee on military health care. Hicks attested to the release of chemical weapons by the Iraqis on the first day of the war, January 17, 1991. He recalled experiencing a burning sensation as he and other members of his unit rushed to don protective suits after emergency alarms went off. Sims showed those at the hearing the red welts with which he'd been afflicted since returning from active service. He then explained to the committee how the VA medical center in Birmingham, Alabama, had attempted to recommend a psychiatrist to help him cope with his problem. [xxv]
The Pentagon Begins to Come Clean
It was at a Washington press conference on June 21, 1996, that the Pentagon finally began to drop its know-nothing stance. They admitted that the demolition of an Iraqi ammunition depot, just after the war's end, may have released chemical agents, including mustard gas and sarin. [xxvi] According to Defense Department officials, United Nations inspectors who had visited the site at the Kamisiyah ammunition depot in southern Iraq in May 1996 had verified traces of these deadly gases at the ruins of a bunker destroyed in March 1991. At the press conference, Pentagon spokesperson Kenneth Bacon also admitted that documentation of this incident had existed as early as 1991, but that it had been temporarily misplaced in the abundance of Pentagon paperwork. The lost-paperwork excuse, though, was too familiar. Commented Senator John D. Rockefeller of West Virginia, " The guy [Bacon] was incoherent because he was faced with having to tell the truth. He was distinctly uncomfortable...They've known all along. How could they possibly not have known all along?" [xxvii]
In that June '96 press conference, the Pentagon did admit that some illnesses may have resulted from the Kamisiyah incident. At that time they mentioned at most, a couple of hundred soldiers being exposed to chemical weapons gases. From then on, though, the numbers of exposed troops changed and the story seemed to worsen practically every day. During the second half of '96, and beyond, there was a cascade of revelations about our Gulf experience. Today, you don't have to be a conspiracy theorist, simply a reader of the mainstream media, to understand that our government has been trying to hide important facts from us for most of this decade.
From page 1 of the Aug. 28, 1996 issue of The New York Times [xxviii] we learned that top echelons of government, i.e., the Pentagon, the White House, the CIA, and the State Department, had been informed in 1991 that chemical weapons were in fact stored at the Kamisiyah site. Yet an official line of no use, exposure, or presence of chemical weapons in the Gulf War had been upheld until 1995. [xxix] During the next few months, the number of exposed troops kept rising. On Sept. 7, 1996, the Associated Press reported that a presidential panel was raising the number of troops exposed to toxic gas at the Kamisiyah demolition from a few hundred to 1100. [xxx] On September 19 that number rose dramatically to 5000. This figure raised with it new questions about the Pentagon's credibility. [xxxi]
In October, the military's medical records were assailed by a National Academy of Sciences panel as being of poor quality. This finding hampered our understanding of Gulf veterans' health problems, as the group's chairman noted. The number of troops that might have been exposed to chemical weapons gases at Kamisiyah had been raised to 15,000 by this time. [xxxii] In the same month the White House panel studying Gulf veterans' illnesses found that the Defense Department's attitude toward veterans was " patronizing or dismissive." [xxxiii] It was also widely disseminated that the Czechs, participants with us in Operation Desert Storm and world-recognized chemical detection experts, had warned American commanders about low levels of nerve and mustard gas during the war, but that these reports had been ignored. Many Czech veterans have also become sick. [xxxiv] In a lengthy Oct. 30, 1996 Times story, [xxxv] two ex-CIA employees asserted that that agency had evidence of up to 60 Gulf War incidents of American troop exposure to chemical weapons. Tens of thousands of our people in the Gulf may have been exposed, said Patrick Eddington, who had specialized, before resigning from the CIA, in analyzing aerial photographs from that region. I interviewed him at length on this. He had the documents to show. That was just one example. His wife, Robin Eddington, who has also resigned, reported having seen, during her CIA tenure, classified information to the effect that trace exposure to chemical weapons, over an extended period, can cause illness. The Defense Department has officially denied this possibility. [xxxvi]
What does that tell us there are people inside the CIA, whistleblowers, willing to tell the truth and say that it wasn't just that one episode in Kamisiyah where a bunch of stored and confiscated biological and chemical weapons were detonated? There were 60 other episodes as well, and that's just what we know about. The official position is that none of it happened.
In November 1996, the Pentagon figure for soldiers who might have been at risk in the Kamisiyah demolition was reported to be 20,000. [xxxvii] The White House panel was calling for the independent investigation of more than 15 additional Gulf War incidents of chemical weapons detection, and it was accusing the Pentagon of poor medical record keeping. [xxxviii]
The 1998 report to the floor of the House of Representatives on the Persian Gulf Veterans Act of 1998 described by Representative Lane Evans, said the act would "require the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS/IOM) to review emerging technologies to assess exposure to agents that may have been present in the Gulf or to identify new diagnostic tools for some conditions…This would provide the 'third-party' perspective sought by many Persian Gulf veterans, as well as the American public." [xxxix]
In reality, however, some vets say it was business as usual despite the fancy language of the Persian Gulf Act of 1998. It meant nothing. Absolutely nothing. The soldiers were still getting sick, and the VA was still refusing to help them.
Michael Woods, speaking before congress, in November 2005 said, "Let me talk about VA's failures after the enactment of the Persian Gulf War Veterans Act…I was once again told there is nothing wrong with Gulf War Veterans." [xl]
'A September 2005 Seattle Post-Intelligencer article reported that, "of the 700,000 U.S. troops who served there in 1991, a disproportionate number experienced serious neurological disorders. More than 65 percent have sought health care for service-related ailments. Nearly 200,000 are receiving disability compensation -- twice the rate as vets from World War II, Korea and Vietnam." [xli]
Now, from my own personal experience, I was given a copy of a film that showed a site being blown up. First you go inside the actual bunker. What's interesting is that you start to see American markings on some of the munitions. That should have immediately sent up a red flag. How did Iraq get biological weapons or weapons of mass destruction? Who in the United States was sending it? Well, of course, I've already reported which companies. The United States gave Iraq four and a half billion dollars in credit to buy arms to use against Iran. But that meant we were in violation of almost every international treaty, including the Geneva treaty. These treaties state we cannot make offensive biological weapons of mass destruction. It's against international law; but we violated it. This is one of the reasons for plausible deniability. No one wants to admit that we were engaged in illegal activities. It would not give us a strong moral character position. Right now we tell the world what they should be doing as if we are the ones who are holding the gold standard. What kind of gold standard is it if we're creating weapons of mass destruction and giving them to a tyrant that kills, murders, and suppresses his own people because we have a common enemy? Our government covered this up.
In any case, when I watched the detonation you see a very unusual thing. You see all these soldiers standing around watching this and none of them have protective gear. No one was protected. We're talking about thousands of individuals were exposed to biological and chemical weapons being detonated.
Are Gulf Vets Really Sicker?
For years now, there has long been the idea that while Gulf War Syndrome illnesses may exist, they're really a response to stress, and that Gulf veterans are in reality no sicker than other vets. In November 1996, the chairwoman of a federal panel investigating the issue contended that Gulf conflict participants are in fact sicker than other soldiers. [xlii] Prominent toxicologist Eula Bingham felt that the data showed clearly that Gulf vets were suffering from a disproportionate number of ailments. One of the reasons this had been unclear probably had to do with the data at which the investigators were looking. While government reports had shown that our Gulf troops were not dying or falling seriously ill at disproportionate rates, many of the vets' ailments, such as gastrointestinal symptoms, chronic fatigue, and aching joints, do not usually result in what researchers had been looking for, which was hospitalization or early death. The vets' symptoms were not taken into proper account in this case.
In other words, in a war you count how many people are coming in who have shrapnel in their head, an arm blown off, and a bullet in their lungs. In this war we're not counting Gulf War vets who are sick. We think if someone has diarrhea it has to do with stress. We believe it has nothing to do with something they've been exposed to. We have 700,000 vets from the first Gulf conflict, and almost 300,000 from the second Gulf conflict. We're talking about nearly a million Americans who served in the Gulf, not including others from other countries, who have been exposed to depleted uranium, who have been exposed to anthrax and botulism and squalene, and in the first Gulf conflict we at least had exposure to biological and other weapons of mass destruction. These vets are sick, and it takes a while to get into the system. If you're a really healthy person and you have a strong immune system, the disease isn't just going to knock you down and knock you out. You may bounce back and feel okay, and then you get sick again. That's what happens over and over again. We're not counting any of those people. So they're right under everyone's radar screen. With all the information that's out there, with all the Presidential panels, they all keep saying that Gulf War Syndrome is caused by the same thing: post-traumatic stress syndrome. That's nonsense. That means that President Clinton intentionally, with his advisors and with malice aforethought, participated in this cover-up. Both Bushes and their advisors, the Pentagon, CIA, State Department, Colin Powell, and General Schwarzkopf have known that there is a cover-up going on. None of them were held legally or morally accountable for the sickness and deaths of hundreds of thousands of GI's.
Now Dr. Bingham and other members of the Persian Gulf Expert Scientific Committee of the Department of Veterans Affairs, feel that chemical exposure has to be looked into, both from weapons and from other sources, such as the Kuwaiti oil-well fires. A point that panel members emphasized was that battlefield stress has been overrated as a causative agent of the symptomatology.
I'm here to tell you that hundreds of vets I interviewed never saw any action at all. There was nothing to be stressed about. How does a mechanic working on a battleship with 5,000 other persons around them with a movie theater and great food and Internet and just working in a maintenance room get this battlefield stress? They don't. Yet they have Gulf War Syndrome. Why? Vaccines. This has to be looked at.
Two government reports substantiated Dr. Bingham's conclusion that Gulf vets are sicker than others. Both the Centers for Disease Control and the Navy, it was reported in November '96, [xliii] had the same finding, citing significantly raised rates of chronic diarrhea, joint pain, skin rashes, fatigue, depression, headaches, and memory loss for Gulf vets, compared to troops who had served elsewhere. And memory loss was the subject of research made public in spring of 1997. Rats injected with the family of chemicals that includes the nerve gas sarin and pesticides exhibited brain damage similar to that in people with memory loss. The Pentagon described these finding as important but, typically, said it was too early to draw firm conclusions. [xliv] My guess is these are the same individuals who say Gulf War Syndrome is all in your mind. They just refuse to change that position.
Underscoring the complexity of the problems that vets are experiencing was the January 1997 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. It featured four studies on Gulf War syndrome, one of which concluded that the syndrome is actually six syndromes, the most serious of which is characterized by problems in thinking and reasoning, confusion, and dizziness. Another syndrome is marked by joint pain, muscle fatigue, tingling, and numbness. Another study of sick Gulf War vets found evidence of subtle neurological damage compatible with exposure to combinations of cholinesterase-inhibiting chemicals. [xlv]
The 1998 Persian Gulf War Veterans act recognized that the syndromes associated with Gulf War Syndrome were more prevalent in those soldiers who had served in the Gulf, 'These conditions seem to be more prevalent in veterans who served in the Persian Gulf than their peers who did not serve. [xlvi]
Michael Woods, who testified on his own behalf on the effectiveness of the 1998 act says that a lot of work needs to be done: 'I suffer many neurological problems to include motor nerve and sensory nerve neuropathy in all of my extremities with the worst being in my right leg, which now requires the use of a prosthetic brace to allow me to continue to walk. I also showed [my doctor] reports from spinal taps done by the VA which show abnormal spinal fluid that the ' Armed Forces Institute of Pathology ' has been unable to diagnose.' [xlvii]
The bacterium Coxiella burnetti, or Q fever can manifest in newly returned vets, and its manifesting symptom, a headache, requires 'suspicion' by diagnosing physicians, as one of its dangers includes neurological effects; this study underlines the need to uncover all the reasons for illness in vets newly returning from service in the Gulf. [xlviii] The trouble is it's not just one thing that vets were exposed to. Vets were exposed to numerous problems over there, but none of them – not a single one – has been honestly looked at by any department of government.
A year 2000 review of the literature entitled, 'Is there immune dysregulation in symptomatic Gulf War veterans?' states that 'stress-induced changes in hormones such as cortisol and catecholamines, …have been implicated in altering levels of cellular or humoral immunity.' Secondarily, the 'balance of cytokines produced by T helper cells of the immune system' are important in this regulation. [xlix]
In another paper entitled 'Stress and immune dysfunction in Gulf War veterans', states that 10% of vets in Alabama suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. [l] Since cortisol is known to increase during stress, cortisol is a likely contributor to subsequent illness. 'It is therefore plausible that stress-induced changes in hormones (such as cortisol and catecholamines) and cytokines, both of which have been implicated in altering levels of cellular or humoral immunity, may play a role in GWV illnesses.' [li]
A June, 1997 paper in The Lancet posits that Gulf War veterans' 'vaccinations under stressful circumstances' can lead to a long-term immune imbalance by shifting cellular immune response. The article states that the literature documents other instances where vaccinations have shifted cellular immune response. [lii]
We already know from numerous studies that a lack of proper dental hygiene can lead to increased risk for heart disease, so the increased risk for heart disease and stroke from a systemic infection such as received from a contaminated vaccination could prove to be deadly as well.
A 2006 study posits that although soldiers who were deployed to the Gulf were more likely to succumb to Gulf War Illness; both deployed and non deployed vets alike suffered similar symptoms, including: 'higher prevalence of symptom-based medical conditions, metabolic syndrome, and psychiatric disorders.'
Deployed veterans were reported as having nicotine dependence and migraine headaches, whereas non-deployed veterans had mononucleosis and gastritis. [liii] Interestingly, 'diagnoses of prewar anxiety disorders (not related to post-traumatic stress disorder) and depression were associated with CMI among both deployed and non-deployed veterans.
So what is happening now is that they're trying to say that all these symptoms of now 200,000 Gulf War vets they're all psychiatric. It's all in their heads. There is no real legitimate disease. They were implying that these vets weren't exposed to any gases and that there was nothing wrong with their anthrax and botulism vaccines. There is nothing wrong with the Gulf War environment such as depleted uranium or the Gulf fires that they were exposed to from the burning oil wells. Instead, it was posited that they were anxious about going over there, and that's why they're sick. That is the current official tactic. We will continue to challenge these tactics, and try to bring you the truth about why Gulf War veterans are suffering.
Notes
[i]'Depleted Uranium' January, 2006 - Traprock Peace Center[ii] 'Leaching of depleted uranium in soil as determined by column experiments' Radiat Environ Biophys Dec 2005;44(3):183-91. Epub Oct 6, 2005.[iii] United States, United Nations Commission on Human Rights Fifty-third Session, 'Item 5 of the provisional agenda Human Rights and Toxics: Depleted Uranium and the Gulf War'[iv]James Denver, ' Horror Of US Depleted Uranium In Iraq Threatens World American Use Of DU is 'A crime against humanity which may, in the eyes of historians, rank with the worst atrocities of all time.'US Iraq Military Vets 'are on DU death row, waiting to die.'' April 29, 2005, January 2006[v] 'Bioaccumulation and behavioural effects of depleted uranium in rats exposed to repeated inhalations' Environ Health Aug 26, 2005; 4:17.[vi] Bill Griffin, Review: Caldicott, H. 2002. 'The New Nuclear Danger: George W. Bush's Military-Industrial Complex.' New York: New York Press, The Catholic Worker, August-September 2002.[vii] Philippa Winkler, Rosalie Bertell, Peter Phillips, Personal interview, September 13, 2004.[viii] Dave Parks, "VA Looking Into Concerns of Depleted Uranium Ammo," The Birmingham News, Sept. 17, 1997.[ix] United States, U.S. House of Representatives, Prepared statement of Dr. Asaf Durakovic before the Subcommittee on Human Resources Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, June 26, 1997.[x] Dan Fahey, Personal Interview, July 23, 1997.[xi] Dan Fahey, Personal Interview, July 23, 1997.[xii] Depleted Uranium Weapons Ignored in Gulf Report: Groups Demand Independent Investigation," Depleted Uranium Education Project, June 24, 1997, Jan. 2006[xiii] ' Nearly 9,000 U.S. troops dead? A Nationwide Call for Info from Survivors' Newswire,[xiv] January, 2006[xv] United States, 'The Persian Gulf Veterans Act of 1998' Lane Evans Feb. 26, 1998.[xvi] United States, 'The Persian Gulf Veterans Act of 1998' Lane Evans Feb. 26, 1998.[xvii] United States, 'The Persian Gulf Veterans Act of 1998' Lane Evans Feb. 27, 1998.[xviii] United States, Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats, and International Relations, 'Examining VA Implementation of the Persian Gulf War Veterans Act of 1998' Michael D Woods, Nov. 15, 2005.[xix] Alex Glass, 'Senator Murray Introduces New Bill to Help More Veterans with Multiple Sclerosis' National Gulf War Resource Center, Inc. January 2006[xx] Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry, April 1996.[xxi] Dennis Bernstein and Thea Kelley, "The Gulf War Comes Home; Sickness Spreads, But the Pentagon Denies All," The Progressive, Mar. 1995, pp. 30-34.[xxii] Dennis Bernstein and Thea Kelley, "The Gulf War Comes Home; Sickness Spreads, But the Pentagon Denies All," The Progressive, Mar. 1995, pp. 30-34.[xxiii] Dennis Bernstein, "Gulf War Syndrome Covered Up," Covert Action Quarterly, No. 53.[xxiv] Dennis Bernstein, "Gulf War Syndrome Covered Up," Covert Action Quarterly, No. 53.[xxv] Gregory Jaynes, "Walking Wounded," Esquire, May 1994, p. 70.[xxvi] Philip Shenon, "Gulf War Illness May Be Linked to Gas Exposure, Pentagon Says," The New York Times, June 22, 1996, pp. 1, 20.[xxvii] Dr. Leonard Horowitz, Personal Interview.[xxviii] Philip Shenon, , "Report Shows U.S. Was Told in 1991 of Chemical Arms," The New York Times, Aug. 28, 1996, pp. 1, B8.[xxix] Philip Shenon, "Chemical Arms in Gulf War: Medical Mystery and Credibility Crisis," The New York Times, Jan. 2, 1997, p. 14.[xxx] Associated Press Wire, "Panel: More G.I.s at nerve gas risk," New York Daily News, Sept. 7, 1996.[xxxi] Philip Shenon, "1991 Blast in Iraq May Have Exposed 5,000 G.I.'s to Gas; A Sharp Rise in Numbers," The New York Times, Sept. 19, 1996, pp. 1, 11.[xxxii] Warren Leary, "Panel on Gulf War Ills Says Poor Records Hampered Its Inquiry," The New York Times, Oct. 10, 1996, p. 27.[xxxiii] Philip Shenon, "Pentagon Accused of 'Dismissive' Attitude on Gulf War Veterans," The New York Times, Oct. 10, 1996, p. 26[xxxiv] Philip Shenon, "Czechs Say They Warned U.S. Of Chemical Weapons in Gulf," The New York Times, Oct. 19, 1996.[xxxv] Dennis Bernstein, and Thea Kelley, "The Gulf War Comes Home; Sickness Spreads, But the Pentagon Denies All," The Progressive, Mar. 1995, pp. 30-34.[xxxvi] Philip Shenon, "Ex-C.I.A. Analysts Assert Cover-Up; Contend Agency Knew of Risk From Chemicals in Gulf War," The New York Times, Oct. 30, 1996.[xxxvii] Elaine Sciolino, "Pentagon Health Chief Fights Claims Claims of a Gulf War Cover-Up," The New York Times, Nov. 3, 1996, p. 30.[xxxviii] Philip Shenon, "Panel Condemns Pentagon Review of Gulf Ailments; Cites Lack of Credibility," The New York Times, Nov. 8, 1996, pp. 1, B6.[xxxix] United States, 'The Persian Gulf Veterans Act of 1998' Lane Evans Feb. 26, 1998.[xl] United States, Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats, and International Relations, 'Examining VA Implementation of the Persian Gulf War Veterans Act of 1998' Michael D Woods, Nov. 15, 2005.[xli] Alex Glass, 'Senator Murray Introduces New Bill to Help More Veterans with Multiple Sclerosis' National Gulf War Resource Center, Inc. January 2006[xlii] Philip Shenon 'Panel Disputes Studies on Gulf War Illness', The New York Times, Nov. 21, 1996.[xliii] Philip Shenon, "2 Studies Seem to Back Veterans Who Trace Illnesses to Gulf War,"The New York Times, Nov. 26, 1996, pp. 1, 16.[xliv] New York Times, May 15, 1997.[xlv] Newsday, Apr. 13, 1997.[xlvi] United States, 'The Persian Gulf Veterans Act of 1998' Lane Evans Feb. 27, 1998.[xlvii] United States, Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats, and International Relations, 'Examining VA Implementation of the Persian Gulf War Veterans Act of 1998' Michael D Woods, Nov. 15, 2005.[xlviii] MA Ferrante, MJ Dolan,'Q fever meningoencephalitis in a soldier returning from the Persian Gulf War'Clin Infect Dis Apr 1993; 16(4):489-96.[xlix]MP Everson, K Shi, P Aldridge, 'Is there immune dysregulation in symptomatic Gulf War veterans?' Z Rheumatol. 2000; 59 Suppl 2:II/124-6.[l]MP Everson, S Kotler, WD Blackburn Jr, 'Stress and immune dysfunction in Gulf War veterans' Ann N Y Acad Sci Jun 22, 1999;876:413-8.[li] MP Everson, S Kotler, WD Blackburn Jr, 'Stress and immune dysfunction in Gulf War veterans' Ann N Y Acad Sci Jun 22, 1999;876:413-8.[lii] GA Rook, A Zumla, 'Gulf War syndrome: is it due to a systemic shift in cytokine balance towards a Th2 profile?' Lancet 1997 Jun 21; 349(9068):1831-3.[liii] MS Blanchard, SA Eisen, R Alpern, 'Chronic multisymptom illness complex in gulf war I veterans 10 years later.'Am J Epidemiol Jan 2006 1;163(1):66-75. Epub 2005 Nov 17
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