ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, August 23, 1996 TAG: 9608230095
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: Associated Press
Chemical weapons possibly were detected up to seven times during the first week of the Persian Gulf War, the Pentagon says in a new report to veterans.
All seven incidents were reported in northern Saudi Arabia, where tens of thousands of U.S. troops were stationed. But the report maintains the Pentagon's position that no evidence ties the chemical weapons to postwar illnesses among veterans and questions the credibility of some of the reported detections.
``To date, no coalition country has made a clinical link between Gulf War veterans' illnesses and their service in the Persian Gulf,'' said the report, which was made available on the Internet.
Pentagon spokesman Capt. Michael Doubleday denied a New York Times report that the Defense Department had not compiled the information before in a public report. ``There's really nothing new in this report,'' he said.
Doubleday said the information may have appeared new to some because it had been compiled from earlier Pentagon documents and placed on the Internet under a program to help advise Gulf War veterans about the issue.
The Pentagon had previously acknowledged two of the chemical detections, by Czechoslovakian troops on Jan. 19 and 24. These are ``credible,'' the Aug. 5 report concluded.
The report details five other possible detections, and the credibility of these detections ``varies considerably,'' the report said. If present, it noted, the chemicals ``dissipated so quickly'' that U.S. troops were unable to detect chemical traces when they were called in. They ``could only have been present for short periods of time,'' it said.
``While not as thoroughly substantiated, [they] cannot be discounted,'' said the report, which is posted on the Defense Department's World Wide Web page dedicated to Gulf War illnesses.
The detections were all by French or Czech units. While the Czech equipment has been evaluated and deemed sensitive and reliable, the French equipment has not been evaluated, the Pentagon said.
In June, the Pentagon reported another potential chemical exposure to U.S. troops.
It said that in March 1991, Americans destroyed an Iraqi ammunition depot that may have contained chemical weapons. If true, soldiers may have been accidentally exposed to sarin or mustard gas.
The World Wide Web address of the Persian Gulf Veterans' Illness Investigation Team is http://www.dtic.dla. mil/gulflink/
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