THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, January 30, 1997 TAG: 9701300395
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: 38 lines
Retired Army Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf strongly denied Wednesday that he or his commanders ever knowingly placed American troops at risk of Iraqi chemical weapons during the Persian Gulf War, saying such accusations were ``a blatant lie.''
But Schwarzkopf, in Senate hearings, also said it was possible that chemical weapons were destroyed during attacks on Iraqi front-line positions or that U.S. commanders didn't recognize chemical agents during postwar cleanup operations.
Schwarzkopf, the commander of the coalition forces during the 1991 war, repeated the Pentagon position that there is no evidence the Iraqis used chemical weapons.
He said the suggestion that he or other commanders were covering up the chemical contamination of troops ``at best demonstrates an abysmal ignorance of the standards of conduct that we expect of all military leaders in our armed forces today, and at worst is a blatant lie.''
At the committee's request, Schwarzkopf recently turned over his personal logs from the war as part of an ongoing investigation into what the military command knew of Iraq's chemical threat.
The general said he did not believe chemical agents were the sole cause of the illnesses afflicting many gulf war veterans. He noted that troops were exposed to pollutants, insecticides and vaccines. ILLUSTRATION: ASSOCIATED PRESS
Retired Army Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, testifying on Capitol Hill
Wednesday, denied that he or his commanders knowingly placed
American troops at risk of Iraqi chemical weapons.
KEYWORDS: CHEMICAL WEAPONS TESTIMONY GULF WAR GULF WAR
ILLNESS GULF WAR SICKNESS STUDY