DATE: Friday, September 26, 1997            TAG: 9709260750

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A5   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS 

DATELINE: WASHINGTON                        LENGTH:   64 lines

PENTAGON LOBBIES TO KEEP ROLE IN GULF-WAR ILLNESS INQUIRY ALTHOUGH THE START WAS ROCKY, THE MILITARY HAS IMPROVED ITS PROCEDURES, COHEN SAYS.

Stripping the Pentagon of its lead role in investigating illnesses allegedly caused by service in the Persian Gulf War would harm, not help, people in the armed forces, Defense officials argued Thursday.

``The Pentagon is fully capable of conducting its own investigation,'' Defense Secretary William Cohen told reporters. He acknowledged that early Pentagon investigations were not handled well but praised Defense staffers for ``an extraordinary effort'' in the past year.

``I think Dr. Rostker has done a superb job,'' the secretary said. Bernard Rostker is the Pentagon's top official dealing with the subject.

The suggestion to remove Pentagon investigators from gulf war-related investigations is contained in a draft of a report that a White House advisory committee is to give to President Clinton by Oct. 31.

``This department has a responsibility not only to Persian Gulf veterans but also to future soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines,'' Rostker said at a separate briefing. ``We have to understand what happened (in the gulf) to change our procedures, our tactics and our doctrine.''

Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon called the White House draft disappointing considering the volume of work and research the Pentagon has done in the past year. The Pentagon ``will continue to be as open as we can on this,'' he said.

``We do not oppose oversight. We do oppose taking it away from the Pentagon and giving to a medical school or some other agency.''

Rostker admitted the Pentagon was slow in reacting to veterans' complaints. But in the past year, he said, the department has been much more aggressive not only in seeking the cause of the mystery ailments but also in working to change military planning and training for potential incidents of exposure to chemical or biological weapons in future conflicts.

Chemical agents are not the only suspected causes of gulf war illnesses. The Pentagon is investigating other possibilities, including exposure to pesticides, depleted uranium or smoke from oil-well fires, and psychological stress.

People who have seen the document from the Presidential Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veteran's Illnesses quote it as saying the Pentagon's credibility continues to erode and another agency could better handle the investigation.

A panel spokesman said Wednesday its review of the report will last about another month.

Asked about the draft, Rostker said: ``It's a very unfair rap to say, `You were bad in '94, and therefore you can't be trusted again.' . . . I've been at this for a year, and I just do not buy the story about credibility.''

He said he has conducted 13 in-depth investigations into specific events where potential exposure might have occurred and has met around the country with veterans and their organizations, members of Congress and the news media.

Bill Smith, a spokesman for the Veterans of Foreign Wars, said Wednesday that the criticism of the Pentagon is valid. But he said despite a continuing ``air of mistrust'' among veterans, the Pentagon has made recent progress in communicating with them more effectively.

Rostker released two more of the 13 in-depth studies, the seventh and eighth in the series. Both involved possible exposure of Marines during and just after the brief 1991 land war, and both reported the presence of chemical warfare agents was unlikely. KEYWORDS: PERSIAN GULF WAR GULF WAR SYNDROME

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