THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, October 23, 1996 TAG: 9610230473
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: FROM WIRE REPORTS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: 88 lines
The Pentagon said Tuesday the number of U.S. soldiers who may have been exposed to chemical agents during the demolition of the huge Khamisiyah Iraqi weapons depot in 1991 now may top 20,000, rather than the 15,000 it had estimated a few weeks ago.
The revision came after authorities discovered battlefield logs from the period suggesting that U.S. soldiers may have been involved in another major demolition in the area that could have affected thousands more U.S. troops as far as 30 miles away.
Pentagon officials previously said they were concerned about two explosions, which took place when U.S. Army engineers blew up the Khamisiyah weapons depot in southern Iraq on March 4 and March 10, 1991.
The Pentagon said Tuesday that U.S. troops may have blown up a third site within the Kamisiyah arsenal on March 12, raising at least the possibility of another, later chemical exposure.
Letters being sent to U.S. troops and veterans now state the period of possible exposure as March 4 to March 15 of 1991.
The time frame was expanded because of conflicting accounts of the number of Iraqi rockets destroyed and the dates on which demolitions took place, officials said. That period also reflects the three-day life span of sarin nerve gas, officials said, which may have been released when the rockets were demolished .
Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon said that he did not know exactly how many soldiers have been contacted, but that at least 600 thought to have been in thearea of the weapons depot had been reached by telephone.
Letters going out to 20,800 gulf war veterans ask them to call the Pentagon with any information they may have about the demolitions and to register with the Pentagon or the Veterans Administration if they need medical assistance.
The units involved are associated mainly with the Army's Fort Bragg-based 82nd Airborne, 24th Infantry Division (Mechanized) and the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault).
Bacon warned that the estimate of the number of veterans who may have been exposed to the chemicals could grow yet again if a computer model under review by the CIA shows that the chemicals may have wafted over other areas of the Persian Gulf where American soldiers were deployed.
The disparity in the demolition accounts is the latest in a series of conflicts that have bedeviled the Defense Department since gulf war veterans began complaining shortly after the conflict of a series of mysterious ailments.
Their complaints, including sore joints, insomnia and fatigue, have been labeled ``the Persian Gulf syndrome.
In June, after fours of years of maintaining that Gulf soldiers were not exposed to any chemical or biological weapons, the Pentagon acknowledged that up to 400 Army personnel could have come in contact with poison gas. That number quickly rose to 5,000 and, earlier this month, to more than 15,000.
During the briefing Tuesday, senior officials acknowledged again and again that the Defense Department was struggling to understand what had happened at Khamisiyah.
Defense Department officials have said that they confirmed only this year that nerve gas and mustard agent had been stored at Kamisiyah and that Americans may have been exposed to the chemicals.
``We had no evidence that there had been chemical exposure until this spring,'' Bacon said. ``And when we found there was evidence, we announced it. It was a watershed event.''
Another senior Pentagon official, speaking at the news conference on condition that he not be named, was even blunter in acknowledging how little the Pentagon knows about chemical exposure in the gulf war.
``We are in no position today to say that we are certain about anything with regard to possible chemical presence or release,'' he said. MEMO: This story was compiled from reports by The Los Angeles Times, The
Associated Press, The Washington Post and The New York Times. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic
Color photo
ABOUT THE SEARCH
WHO: 20,800 Persian Gulf War veterans, some of whom are with the
Fort Bragg-based 82nd Airborne Division.
WHY: They were in the area during and after the demolition of the
Khamisiyah weapons depot in southern Iraq in the gulf war.
WHEN: From March 4 to March 15, 1991
WHAT: They're being asked to to call the Pentagon at 1-800-472-6719
with any information they may have about the demolition and to
register with the Pentagon at 1-800-796-9699 or the Veterans
Administration at 1-800-749-8387 if they need medical assistance.
KEYWORDS: GULF WAR ILLNESS PERSIAN GULF WAR CHEMICAL
WEAPONS IRAQ CASUALTIES INJURIES by CNB