-Caveat Lector- ARTICLE 8
Don’t Ignore Health Risks of a Gulf War II By Robert L. McMahon Before President Bush orders our warriors into Gulf War II against Iraq, we all need to consider more carefully what happened to the brave men and women of Gulf War I eleven years ago. In particular, the Pentagon and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) need to come clean on their ham- handed mishandling, denials and obfuscations regarding the vast number of physical ailments suffered by hundreds of thousands of veterans. In a recent letter to VA Secretary Anthony Principii, Michael Woods, president of The National Gulf War Resource Center Inc., formally accused the VA of being in open violation of federal law for being five months’ delinquent in releasing up-to-date “death and disability” statistics on Gulf War I veterans. This has never happened before. If we are to fight again, surely we are entitled to know the facts about what happened last time. So why is the VA dragging its feet now? Woods is concerned that the VA is stalling because the dismal casualty statistics of Gulf War I could undermine the case made by the President, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and the group of Republican hawks pressing for a “regime change” invasion of Iraq. Most Americans agree that Saddam Hussein is a menace to the Middle East and the world at large. All of us would be better off if his regime were toppled and he became a historical footnote. But our warriors and veterans deserve better than what they have been getting from the Defense Department and VA up to now. The numbers to date on Gulf War I illnesses are staggering: More than 697,000 U.S. troops served in Operations Desert Shield/Desert Storm from Aug. 8, 1990 until after the cease-fire on March 3, 1991. By the end of 1998, the VA had formally designated more than 235,000 - a full 34 percent - as medical casualties who have sought medical care as a result of their Gulf War service. That's an astonishing number by itself. Of these veterans, there are 70,000 who are claiming injury from undiagnosed conditions resulting from possible toxic exposures. Before you jump to conclusions that all these veterans are nothing more than whining “generation X” losers, let's look at the list of the toxins our Gulf War veterans endured during Gulf War I, according to The National Gulf War Resource Center, Inc.. Main Types of Toxic Exposures: Type of Toxin Number of Troops A. Chemical Warfare Agents 100,000 B. Investigational New Drugs 1. Pyridostigmine Bromide Pills (PB) 250,000 2. Botulinum Toxoid Vaccine 8,000 C. Anthrax Vaccine 150,000 D. Depleted Uranium Munitions (DU) 436,000 E. Oil-well Fire Pollution 696,000 F. Local Diseases Unknown (Source: The National Gulf War Resource Center, Inc.) The Pentagon denied that troops were exposed to chemical warfare agents (Row A) for five years, despite the growing number of sickened veterans. And it's not that Saddam Hussein even fired them at us. Our own troops destroyed an Iraqi arms depot that contained them, inadvertently exposing troops to the chemicals in the world's largest friendly-fire incident on record. The vast exposure to Depleted Uranium (DU) munitions (Row D) is another major cause for alarm. The Pentagon didn't acknowledge the widespread exposure to DU toxins till 1998. Government health experts now concede that exposure to as little as .01 gm in a week can cause health problems. In Gulf War I, we used over 640,000 pounds of DU munitions – for a cumulative total of 300 million gram-equivalent exposures! Before the Bush administration proceeds to commit the younger brothers and sisters of GWI to fight GWII, we should have a full airing of these massive health issues. If the Pentagon and the VA, either through incompetence or hubris, have not dealt honestly and effectively with our casualties from Gulf War I, are we ready to callously toss more of our troops and veterans onto this poisonous environment? Years from now I don't want to see books about “The Gulf War Generation” exposing how we betrayed veterans – twice – by exposing them to a toxic battlefield that created vast numbers of illness and even death. The president, his secretary of defense and the VA all need to place on the record exactly what caused the enormous numbers of medical casualties in Gulf War I and what is being done, in light of that experience, to reduce the hazards our troops would face in Gulf War II. McMahon is president of Soldiers for The Truth Foundation, which publishes DefenseWatch magazine. He can be reached at rmcmahon1 @rcn.com. <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. 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