SENATOR SHELBY'S CONCLUSIONS ON THE PERSIAN GULF SYNDROME (Senate - March 17, 1994)
[Page: S3103]
4. The Department of Defense has proven reluctant to pursue or, in certain instances, to provide the information necessary to prove or disprove allegations about the presence of chemical agents in the theater of operations during the Persian Gulf War. The reason for this apparent aversion to `full disclosure' has not been determined. Staff working on this issue were constantly challenged by the Department's evasiveness, inconsistency, and reluctance to work together toward a common goal.
Several examples will illustrate this point:
During a briefing I attended on November 19, 1993 the Dr. John Deutch, the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, advised that, while the Department could neither confirm nor deny the Czech detections and verifications, the Department position was that categorically there were no chemical warfare agents present in the theater of operations.
Having been advised by the Department of Defense that it had no information to offer regarding the possible presence of chemical warfare agents in the theater of operations, I determined, with your concurrence, to travel to Europe and the Middle East to pursue this matter with our allies. Only after the Committee staff confronted the Department regarding specific events that I learned about during these travels, did the Department acknowledge that it had been aware of these same events.
Similarly, it was only after my contact with our allies revealed that they had, in fact, reported various chemical detections to the Central Command Headquarters, that the Department acknowledged evidence of this reporting in the operational logs.
On page 45 of the history of the 2nd Marine division in Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm, which was published by Marine Corps' History and Museum Division, there is a detailed incident in which Marines of the 2nd Marine Division detected mustard agent. I am at a loss to explain how an official Marine Corps publication can document such an event and the Department of Defense could deny any evidence regarding chemical weapons agents in the theater of operations.
Persian Gulf medical records of members of the 24th Naval Reserve Battalion are missing from their files.
This passivity on the part of the Department when combined with rather obvious attempts to dissuade the Committee staff from the need for further investigation typifies the Department's attitude toward the Committee on this matter.
--
--
(BY SENATOR RICHARD C. SHELBY)
When Iraqi forces, at the direction of Saddam Hussein, crossed into Kuwait on August 2, 1990, they set off a change reaction of events that resulted in the assembling of the largest coalition of forces since the Second World War. Countries that had been on the opposite sides of the Cold War were now joined with the expressed goal of driving Saddam Hussein's troops out of Kuwait.
Soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines were sent to Saudi Arabia from all over the globe. The U.S. led the way with over 600,000 members of our armed services, including over 200,000 reservists. Troops were sent from Great Britain, France, Italy, Egypt, Syria, Morocco and many other nations. Czechoslovakia, at the behest of the Saudi Arabian government, provided chemical warfare agent detection units.
There was a strong belief among the coalition forces that chemical and even biological agents would be used as weapons by Iraq should the coalition forces invade Kuwait and Iraq. Iraq was known to posses G-series nerve and mustard agents and it was believed that they also possessed Anthrax and possibly other biological agents. After all, Saddam Hussein had freely and indiscriminately used chemical weapons, delivered in artillery shells and dropped as bombs, during his war with Iran, not only against Iranians, but also against Kurds.
When Desert Storm began on January 17, 1991, there was obvious concern among Coalition Forces about Saddam Hussein's reaction to allied air strikes. U.S. bombing was stealthy and effective, knocking out Iraqi communications in the first hours of the war and Saddam Hussein's nuclear and chemical warfare factories were targeted and destroyed. Additionally, B-52's bombed Iraqi positions along the Kuwaiti and Iraqi borders with Saudi Arabia.
Saddam Hussein responded by launching Scud missiles toward Saudi Arabia and Israel. Because there was always the possibility of an Iraqi launch of a Scud armed with a chemical warhead, gas masks and chemical protection suits were donned at the first sign of attack. These Scud attacks were met with moderate success by U.S. Patriot Missile batteries. With the exception of one missile which landed on a company of Pennsylvania reservists, the Scuds had more success as a weapon of terror than as a weapon of physical destruction.
On February 24, 1991, Coalition forces began the ground phase of the campaign as they charged into Iraq and Kuwait. Within 100 hours Kuwait was in the hands of the Coalition, and what was left of Saddam Hussein's forces was fleeing toward Baghdad. A great victory had been won. General Norman Schwartzkopf, Commander-in-Chief of U.S. Central Command; and General Colin Powell, Chairman of the Joint-Chiefs-of-Staff; were heroes and by the end of May 1991 the vast majority of U.S. troops were home.
However, by the summer of 1992, Gulf War veterans, primarily members of the National Guard and Reserves, were relating stories of a mystery illness affecting many who had served in Saudi Arabia. Symptoms included: joint pain, fatigue, headaches, decreased short-term memory, unexplained rashes, painful burning muscles, sleep disorders and diarrhea. While most of us have experienced similar symptoms at one time or another, these ailments were not responding to treatment.
In response to possible Gulf War-related illness, the Senate Armed Services Committee included a provision in the Department of Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1992 that established a registry for members of our armed forces who served in the Persian Gulf theater of operations and may have been exposed to fumes from burning oil wells. The smoke from oil well fires, deliberately set by Iraqi soldiers as they retreated from Kuwait, caused acute respiratory problems which could result in long-term health problems. However, none of these sick veterans were among those who had been exposed to smoke from oil well fires. To assist in the investigation of this issue a Desert Shield/Desert Storm registry was established in the Department of Veterans Affairs Authorization Bill for Fiscal Year 1993.
By January 1993, the veterans were becoming increasingly frustrated by the inability of the Veterans Department to treat their illnesses. I met with a group of Alabama veterans after a town meeting that I held in Bessemer and pledged that I would do everything in my power to get them proper treatment and to find the cause of their ailments.
In February 1993, I met with Secretary of Veterans Affairs Jesse Brown and received his pledge to assist these veterans. Following this meeting, the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs announced that centers would be established for the treatment of what had become known as the Gulf War Syndrome. However, when little progress was made, veterans were prompted to seek treatment outside of the Department of Defense and Department of Veterans Affairs medical community.
As Chairman of the Subcommittee on Force Requirements and Personnel, I included a panel of Gulf War veterans consisting of Congressman Stephen Buyer of Indiana; Army Staff Sergeant Kerry Riegel; Petty Officer Sterling Sims, a member of 24th Construction Battalion of the Navy Reserves; and Sergeant Willie Hicks, a member of the 644th Ordinance Company of the Alabama Army National Guard in my June 30, 1993 hearing on military medical health care.
Just days before the hearing, a leading U.S. newspaper reported that U.S. forces may have been exposed to chemical warfare agents during Desert Storm and testimony from both Petty Officer Sims and Sergeant Hicks confirmed the possibility of their exposure to chemical attacks while serving in the Persian Gulf War.
I believe the most dramatic event of the investigation occurred in the early morning hours of January 20, 1991, when an explosion went off in the sky above Jabail along the North East coast of Saudi Arabia alerting Seabees in the 24th Construction Battalion to donn their chemical defensive gear. After the all clear signal was given, a group of Seabees were hit with a burning mist that smelled of ammonia and caused their khaki colored t-shirts to turn purple.
On July 2, 1993, possibly responding to reports in American newspapers, the Czech News Agency reported that Czech military units had detected chemical warfare agents, both nerve gas and mustard agents in Saudi Arabia during the opening days of the air war against Iraq. Nerve Gas was detected by a Czechoslovakian unit attached to the Saudi troops in the area of Hafar-Al-Batin on January 19, 1991 and Mustard Agent was allegedly detected in a 20200 centimeter patch in the desert north of King Khalid Military City on January 24, 1991. A report of these detections was supposedly forwarded to the U.S. Department of Defense by the Czech government.
This announcement led to a series of meetings with Department of Defense officials, which continued throughout the fall of 1993 and included a meeting with Undersecretary of Defense John Deutch. Although a multitude of chemical alarms were sounded during Operation Desert Storm, the Department of Defense maintained that they had no evidence of any chemical weapons attacks by Iraq during the Gulf War and they could not confirm the detection of chemical warfare agents. While Department of Defense officials did not deny that the Czechs had detected chemical warfare agents at low levels, they could not or would not confirm the presence of chemical warfare agents in the theater of operations.
On October 27, 1993, Dr. Charles Jackson of the Tuskegee, Alabama Veterans Medical Center diagnosed a patient as suffering from Gulf War Syndrome and Chemical-Biological Warfare Exposure. In response to both this announcement and pressure from Congress, Secretary Brown announced, on November 1, 1993, that the Department of Veterans Affairs was establishing a pilot program in Birmingham, Alabama to test Persian Gulf veterans from Alabama and Georgia for exposure to chemical weapons agents, and on November 10, 1993, Secretary of Defense Les Aspin announced a blue-ribbon task force, headed by Dr. Josh Letterberg, to study the Gulf War Syndrome.
It was in response to these events that Sen. Sam Nunn, Chairman of the Committee on Armed Services, sent me to both Europe and the Middle East to investigate all issues related to the possible presence of chemical and biological weapon agents in the theater of operations during Operation Desert Storm and the possible connection between service in the Persian Gulf and the unexplained illness affecting thousands of veterans.
The initial stage of my investigation of these issues led me to Prague; London; and Paris. Dr. Edwin Dorn, then Assistant Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness and Maj. Gen. Ronald Blanck, Commander of Walter Reed Army Medical Center, and members of both my personal staff and the Senate Armed Services Committee staff accompanied me.
Enroute to Prague, we met with the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations (DCSOPS) and representatives from the Headquarters of the U.S. Army Europe (USAREUR) and were provided with their assessment of possible chemical weapons use and/or employment during the Persian Gulf War.
According to the representatives, on January 19, 1991, a Czech chemical unit detected G-series nerve agents in two locations in concentrations which were militarily insignificant. U.S. chemical reconnaissance troops were called in to verify the detection and were unable to detect any agent at either of the two locations. Also, on January 24, 1991, a Czech chemical unit detected mustard agent in a wet sand patch measuring two meters by 60 centimeters, two kilometers north of King Khalid Military City (KKMC). (Note: Other sources would place this detection 10 kilometers north of KKMC.) Additionally, on January 17, 1991, the U.S. bombed a chemical weapons munitions storage site at An Nasiryah, located 200 kilometers from the Saudi-Iraq border, but the U.S. does not believe this action was the cause of the January 19, detection of nerve agent by the Czech chemical detection unit.
The representatives from U.S. Army Europe continued by saying that they believed the Saudis had an underground chemical training facility in the vicinity of the 'wet spot,' which could account for the small amounts of chemical agents detected. Finally, they believed that the chemicals detected may have been part of an attempt by the Saudis to test the capabilities of the Czech chemical detection unit, but no information was offered on the part of the representatives on where the Saudis would have gotten the chemical weapons agents.