ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, August 29, 1996 TAG: 9608290056
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-9 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: Associated Press
The Pentagon acknowledged on Wednesday that it knew as far back as November 1991 that chemical weapons had been stored at an Iraqi ammunition depot that U.S. troops had demolished just months earlier.
The Pentagon and other government agencies aware of the presence of chemical weapons at the Kamisiyah ammunition storage facility did not realize in 1991, however, that American troops had been there, spokesman Capt. Michael Doubleday said.
So a November 1991 intelligence report indicating the presence of chemical shells at Kamisiyah - including one described as leaking - essentially was filed away and forgotten even as the U.S. government continued to deny it had any evidence that large numbers of troops might have been exposed to chemical weapons.
The estimated 150 U.S. troops who blew up Iraqi shells at Kamisiyah in March 1991, shortly after the conclusion of the Persian Gulf War, did not know they included chemical arms.
Doubleday denied that the Pentagon had deliberately kept the troops in the dark.
``The full relevance of the report ... was not recognized'' until recently because in 1991 the Pentagon had failed to realize U.S. troops had been at Kamisiyah in southern Iraq, and there was not yet any public concern about the mysterious ailment known as Gulf War Syndrome, he said.
Some critics doubted Doubleday's explanation.
``I don't believe'' the Pentagon was unaware in 1991 that U.S. troops had blown up parts of the Kamisiyah bunker complex, said Lydia Pace of the Gulf War Veterans of Arkansas. She was an Air Force nurse during the war, and she believes the Pentagon has dragged its feet in investigating possible causes for Gulf War Syndrome.
Many of the troops of the 37th Engineer Battalion, who destroyed parts of the depot in March 1991, have since developed debilitating illnesses, including infections that they believe may be linked to their exposure to chemical weapons.
Some of those troops, interviewed Sunday on CBS' ``60 Minutes,'' said they had been told at the time not to don full protective gear, despite a chemical officer's warning that his tests detected the nerve gas sarin at the site. The chemical officer, Dan Tipulski, told ``60 Minutes'' he ignored a commander's order not to put on protective suits and wore his anyway, and he is the only man in his unit who is not ill.
The Pentagon released copies of the November 1991 intelligence report after The New York Times reported on it in its Wednesday editions. The routing codes on the intelligence report show it was seen not only at the Pentagon but also at the White House, the State Department, the CIA and in numerous military commands around the world. It originally was classified secret, Doubleday said, and the version released Wednesday was heavily censored.
James Tuite, a former aide to the Senate Banking Committee who investigated possible Gulf War chemical exposures in 1994, said he accepted the Pentagon's claim that the 1991 report did not appear significant at first glance. But he said it was among many such reports that the Pentagon failed to provide the Banking Committee when it formally requested such documents in 1994.
``If they were trying to be open, they would have provided it when the committee requested it,'' Tuite said.
The true significance of the November 1991 intelligence report became apparent only this spring, Pentagon officials said, after a CIA analyst drew a connection between the reported presence of 122mm chemical rockets at Bunker 73 at Kamisiyah and the discovery that the 37th Engineer Battalion had blown up Bunker 73.
Although the Pentagon says it failed to realize that American troops had been present at Kamisiyah, the Iraqi government actually reported this fact to U.N. weapons inspectors after the war ended.
LENGTH: Medium: 74 linesby CNB