ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, October 31, 1996 TAG: 9610310063
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A8 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: LOS ANGELES TIMES
The Clinton administration sought Wednesday to fend off new criticism of its handling of Gulf War illness complaints as two former CIA analysts accused the agency of covering up evidence that thousands more soldiers may have been exposed to chemical agents.
Both the Pentagon and Central Intelligence Agency issued statements denying the charges, and the President's Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses - which is probing the controversial issue - said it had already considered the evidence in question.
The former analysts, Patrick Eddington and Robin Eddington, said Wednesday that they found evidence of up to 60 separate incidents in which nerve gas and other chemical weapons were released in the vicinity of American troops, but that they were muzzled by CIA higher-ups.
The two, who are married, resigned from the CIA earlier this year and are writing a book on their allegations. Patrick Eddington said in an interview that he believes the government is engaged in ``a pattern of deception and denial'' that ``is continuing to this day.''
It was not clear what impact the new allegations would have. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., chairman of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, were unavailable for comment. Those panels both have probed the administration's handling of Gulf War medical cases.
The thrust of the Eddingtons' charges, reported initially in the New York Times, is that the CIA is hiding logs and cables that show Iraq had moved chemical weapons near its border just before the Gulf war and that U.S. commanders knew their troops might be at risk.
The two analysts said CIA Director John Deutch expressed alarm over their course of inquiry, and that middle-level officials later sought to squelch their findings. CIA officials said Deutch only wanted to ensure that the pair's conclusions were not characterized as an official CIA position.
Eddington also charged that Defense Secretary William Perry and Gen. John Shalikashvili, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, lied in a 1994 letter to veterans in which they asserted that no U.S. troops had been exposed to chemical agents.
Actually, the 1994 letter by Perry and Shalikashvili said only that the Pentagon had no information indicating ``that chemical or biological weapons were used in the Gulf'' - an assertion the Defense Department insists it still believes is true today.
Both the Pentagon and CIA reacted sharply Wednesday to the Eddingtons' allegations. CIA officials said the evidence the Eddingtons cited involved ``raw intelligence reports,'' containing information that later proved untrue or could not be confirmed.
Mark Mansfield, a CIA spokesman, said the Eddingtons' findings were ``looked at by the CIA and provided to the presidential advisory commission,'' and that ``agency [CIA] analysts did not agree with his conclusions.'' The advisory committee is slated to report in December.
Mansfield said the Eddingtons' views on the issue ``were not suppressed in any way, shape or form'' inside the agency. Outsiders said the CIA is reviewing the Eddingtons' book manuscript to make sure that it does not reveal classified information.
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