Associated Press
02/21/02

Gulf Vets Reporting More Problems

Thu Feb 21, 5:02 PM ET
By SUZANNE GAMBOA
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Gulf War soldiers believed to have escaped exposure to
a vapor cloud from an Iraqi chemical weapons depot are dying at nearly
10 times the rate of troops the Pentagon says were exposed, a Veterans
Administration analysis indicates.

The Pentagon has said about 100,000 soldiers were exposed to deadly
gases when the Khamisiyah chemical weapons facility was blown up by U.S.
combat engineers. But it also has said the level of exposure was not
hazardous.

The analysis by the Veterans Benefits Administration, obtained by The
Associated Press, included data on deaths and VA benefits applications.
It did not include a review of how the veterans died - such as car
accident, natural causes or service-related illness - or whether any
deaths or claims were attributable to exposure to nerve gases.

The analysis did say 3,689 of 42,167 claims processed were for
undiagnosed illnesses.

VA statisticians briefed veterans groups on the report Thursday but
offered no explanations for the disparity in death rates, according to
Patrick Eddington, associate director of government relations for
Vietnam Veterans of America.

Eddington said more investigation is needed to determine exactly who was
exposed and whether they could face health problems as a result.

"If there is a benign explanation for this discrepancy, we don't know
what it would be," said Eddington, whose group also advocates for Gulf
War veterans.

VA spokesman Jim Benson said he had not seen the analysis and had no
immediate comment. Pentagon spokeswoman Barbara Goodno said, "The report
is a VA report and the numbers to us appear to be raw data. For us to
draw any conclusion would be premature."

For years the Pentagon discounted claims that mysterious illnesses cited
by Gulf War veterans could be tied to toxic exposures. But last
December, a Pentagon-supported report by the Rand Corp.'s National
Defense Research Institute raised the possibility some undiagnosed
illnesses could be explained by exposure to low levels of Iraqi nerve
gas.

The report called for more research into the long-term health effects of
exposure such as that experienced by American soldiers at Khamisiyah,
where weapons caches were destroyed March 4 and 10, 1991. It was
discovered later that the depot and a nearby pit contained hundreds of
weapons filled with lethal sarin, cyclosarin and mustard gases.

The Pentagon sent letters in 1997 to the troops it believed might have
been exposed to a chemical vapor cloud from the explosion. The letter
said the level of exposure was not high enough to cause health problems.

Three years later, the Pentagon said a revised computer model using new
weather and troop location information showed a different track for the
vapor cloud that took it over other soldiers.

A new round of letters went out. Some 34,418 soldiers were told military
officials no longer believed they were exposed. An additional 65,407
were told the Pentagon still believed they might have been exposed. And
34,638 others were told officials now believed they might have been
exposed.

The VA's analysis found 221 deaths among the group the Pentagon
consistently said might have been exposed, a rate of 3.38 per 1,000.
There were 105 deaths, or 3.03 per 1,000, among the group military
officials added after the revised computer model.

But there were 1,011 deaths, or 29.37 per 1,000, among the group that
first was told it might have been exposed, then that it was not.

Dave Autry, spokesman for Disabled American Veterans, said it is
important to find out why groups of mainly young males would have such
differing death rates.

Erik Gustafson, a Gulf War veteran from Washington in the group with the
highest death rate, called the numbers "extremely alarming."

Gustafson was with the 864th Engineer Battalion in northeast Kuwait when
Khamisiyah was destroyed. He said he has not had any serious health
problems, but has seen friends from his battalion experience problems.

"What's happened is any trust I might have had is gone. It's really
eroded over time," Gustafson said. "When I got the second letter, it was
like, 'Can't they get any of this right?' Now, this just reinforces the
skepticism."