* UNEDITED *

1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

2 - - -

3 MEETING OF THE

4 PRESIDENTIAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE

5 ON GULF WAR VETERANS' ILLNESSES

6 - - -

7 Capitol North Ballroom

8 Radisson Hotel Atlanta

9 Courtland Street and

11 International Boulevard

12 Atlanta, Georgia

13 Tuesday, April 16, 1996

15 The meeting was convened, pursuant to notice, at

16 8:45 a.m., Chairman of the Panel, Presiding

17 ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEMBERS PRESENT:

18 THOMAS P. CROSS

19 DONALD CUSTIS

20 MARGUERITE KNOX

21 ROLANDO RIOS

22 ANDREA KIDD TAYLOR

1 C O N T E N T S

2 AGENDA PAGE

3 CALL TO ORDER AND OPENING REMARKS

4 PUBLIC COMMENTS

5 GOVERNMENT INVESTIGATIONS OF POSSIBLE

6 EXPOSURES TO CBW AGENTS

7 NONGOVERNMENTAL INVESTIGATIONS OF

180

8 POSSIBLE EXPOSURES TO CBW AGENTS

9 ADJOURNMENT

1 P R O C E E D I N G S

2 WELCOME AND INTRODUCTIONS

3 MR. CROSS: My name is Tom Cross, a member of the

4 Presidential Advisory Committee. As most of you know, I'ma

5 Gulf War Vet, and on behalf of the Panel I'd like to thank

6 all of you for coming today. Many of you I know have

7 traveled from great distances and we appreciate everybody

8 being here.

9 Before we go to our public comments session, I'd

10 like the rest of the Committee Members and Staff to

11 introduce themselves at this time.

12 MR. TURNER: I am James Turner; I'm a member of

13 the Committee Staff.

14 DR. CUSTIS: I'm Dr. Custis, I'm currently

15 retired.

16 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: I'm Andrea Kidd Taylor. I'm

17 industrial hygienist and occupational health consultant

with

18 United Auto Workers Health and Safety Department in

Detroit,

19 Michigan.

20 MS. GWIN: I'm Holly Gwin on the Committee

Staff.

21 MR. KOWALOK: I'm Mike Kowalok with the

Committee

22 Staff.

23 MS. KNOX: I'm Marguerite Knox. I'm a Gulf War

24 Veteran, and I'm a nurse practitioner.

25 MR. RIOS: I'm Rolando Rios. I'm an attorney

and

1 a Vietnam Veteran.

2 MR. BROWN: I'm Mark Brown. I'm a chemist

3 toxicologist and I'm on the Committee Staff.

4 MR. CROSS: Thank you very much.

5 Okay. We have a full agenda today and the first

6 person who is scheduled to speak is Thomas Lane. Is he

7 available?

8 PUBLIC COMMENT

9 MR. LANE: Hi, my name is Thomas Lane. I'm very

10 fortunate to be here. I appreciate you allowing me coming

11 and speaking before the Presidential Advisory Committee.

12 To start out with, I was the first patient of

Dr.

13 Hyman, Edward Hyman, and his treatment in essence gave my

14 life back to me.

15 There's probably several here that's still

16 suffering from the Desert Storm sickness. I know what

17 they're going through because I suffered it for over a

year

18 before I was fortunate enough to be treated by Dr. Hyman.

19 Basically, the thing I brought before you today

20 what I call Operation Rescue the Dying, because these

people

21 if they're not treated, they're going to die eventually in

22 some form or fashion. And so we need to really get

serious

23 about getting these people taken care of.

24 There is no hope of them getting better on their

25 own. Their spouses, even their children, they're dying

from

1 a sickness no one seems to understand. Watery bowels,

2 increased pulse rate, loss of appetite, weight swings,

3 thoughts of suicide, sleeplessness, emotional

outbursts,

4 memory loss, tremors, shakes, lack of drive,

depression,

5 itchy scalp, fatigue, sore throat, joint pain,

6 disorientation, night sweats, and urinating problems.

Every

7 one of these things they're all going through.

8 What irritates me is when you hear somebody from

9 the DOD or the VA, they say, well, none of these cases are

10 alike, but they have so much similarity it is unreal. So

11 they try to destroy the fact that these people really got

12 this over in Desert Storm. The reason being is they don't

13 want to be responsible for it. So all of these are the

14 elements of that mysterious disease from Desert Storm.

15 Over 3,500 people have died. In my opinion

that's

16 sad. For one thing, I've been treated successfully, and

how

17 many in the government phase has sought out Dr. Hyman and

18 his treatment to help those who are still afflicted? You

19 know, how long are we going to stand around and let people

20 be permanently damaged from this? There's over 200,000

now

21 that are affected by this disease, and the numbers are

22 growing every day. Back when I started having my

problems,

23 there was only a few thousand of us. But as time goes by

24 that is going to increase.

25 Why is it considered a mysterious disease? One

1 the reasons is due to the fact that a cause cannot be

found,

2 the source that caused it identified. And is that any

3 reason to punish those who still suffer? Do you have to

get

4 down to the bottom of it before you take action? We got

5 know what it is before we can do anything. Well, you

don't.

6 You've got proof right here in front of you.

7 I tell you what, I was in sad shape before I got

8 treated. Sad shape. Does that justify the inhumane

9 treatment that these people have received? With all the

10 technology available through this great computer age that

11 live in, we're no better than a barbaric society. Who's

12 responsibility is it? It's those that lead our

government.

13 We need to take care of these people.

14 Just like I said, I'm one of the fortunate ones

15 that Dr. Hyman treated. To tell you how bad I was, I

16 started having problems about the time I returned from the

17 Gulf War. I had the watery bowels, I had the bumps that

18 came and went, sleeplessness, fatigue, memory problems.

I'd

19 be driving down the street where I grew up in and be

totally

20 lost. Totally lost. Every joint in my body ached.

21 I struggled to make it through the day;

after

22 about 10:00 o'clock in the morning, I didn't have the

23 strength to really make it, but I forced myself to make

24 through the day. Come home, go to bed.

25 Little things like vacuuming the carpet, I

could

1 vacuum the carpet for five minutes and didn't have the

2 strength to get back to the couch, I had to lay down on

the

3 floor to gather enough strength to get back to the couch.

4 know exactly what these people are going through because

5 was there myself.

6 So my whole way of living was centered on rest

7 during that whole period of time from say around May of

'91

8 to December '92 when Dr. Hyman treated me. I couldn't

even

9 open a jar of mayonnaise. Didn't have the strength, and

10 plus my hands hurt so bad I couldn't open a jar of

11 mayonnaise. Had to get my kids to do that. My left hip

12 hurt me so bad I had to use a cane to get around on. I

felt

13 like I was 90-something years old.

14 And that's about the time I started talking with

15 Dr. Hyman. He had contacted me, said he thought maybe he

16 knew what we were going through, said he had a treatment

17 available.

18 He took a couple of urine samples from me,

founda

19 bacteria swimming around in my body, and as soon as we

could

20 got me in the hospital. Started treatment December 15th,

21 went twelve straight days, and I felt immediate relief

when

22 he fed those IVs into me. I mean immediately.

23 I was on several different medications from the

24 and he took all that away from me, and after the second

day

25 I really didn't need that medication again.

1 So in essence Dr. Hyman gave my life back.

Before

2 Desert Storm I was probably one of the hardest workers you

3 ever seen in your life. I could go from daylight till

dark

4 and still have the energy to keep going. Never did get

run

5 down. I was a cross-country runner in college, ran

6 marathons, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But I came

back

7 from Desert Storm, I couldn't do that no more. I couldn't

8 run, I couldn't exercise, I couldn't do nothing. I

couldn't

9 work hardly at all.

10 So Dr. Hyman gave my life back to me. Never

11 thought I'd ever get back to my old self, but here I am.

12 I'm back to running at lunch time just about every day.

I'm

13 working from morning till dark, got the energy that I used

14 to have. I'm living proof of what the man done for me.

15 These people that are still suffering, they're

16 never going to get any better on their own. Their body

will

17 never build up enough antibodies on its own to get better.

18 You can wait and wait and wait, and what's going to happen

19 is more and more people's going to die. I'm not

20 exaggerating. And eventually it will reach a point where

21 you'll have to do something.

22 The DOD denies a sickness even exists. I've

gota

23 cousin that retired from -- as a major from the Army. He

24 called me the other day and he said, you know, they

finally

25 come out and said there's nothing to it. They've made a

1 final statement saying there's nothing to it. That's a

2 bunch of hogwash.

3 They've downplayed the sickness ever since they

4 found out something was wrong. The reason being is, they

5 don't want to accept the responsibility. They know how

much

6 it's going to cost them once they get started because the

7 numbers are growing every day.

8 The VA spent a lot of money on paperwork, they

9 spent well over $10 million just doing paper studies. And

10 how much good has that done? Nothing. How much -- how

many

11 people would that have treated? Well over 10,000 people

12 could have been treated with that $10 million that they

13 wasted.

14 MR. CROSS: Mr. Lane, could we -- I'd like to

get

15 into questions if we could, if at all possible.

16 MR. LANE: Do you mind if I do a summary then?

17 MR. CROSS: Sure.

18 MR. LANE: Okay. I was going to talk about the

19 causes, and you've got what I wrote down so you can look

20 those causes and you can see a lot of different things

that

21 could have caused it. The bottom line is this: don't

worry

22 about what caused it, worry about getting these people

taken

23 care of. They need to be taken care of. My goodness, we

24 can worry about the cause years from now.

25 But I'm going to tell you amazing things about

Dr.

1 Hyman, just a very little here. My wife, she had her

2 bladder shut down for 14 weeks, she had to catheterize

3 herself, okay? Very serious business. She had two or

three

4 doctors looking at her, a urologist specialist, he

operated

5 three -- twice, prescribed several different medications,

6 did no good at all.

7 I was worried about it, and I felt like, well, I

8 had bothered Dr. Hyman way too much already, but I called

9 him, I said, listen, got this problem right here. He

said,

10 send me a urine sample. Sent him a urine sample, he

called

11 back and he said, okay, he said, I've identified it

through

12 her urine. I'm prescribing medication, and this should do

13 it.

14 The fourth day, my wife didn't have to

catheterize

15 herself, she started going on her own, you know. The man

16 knows what he's doing.

17 Another time she had a hernia operation and had

18 staph infection. Her own doctor didn't even know it. I

19 sent him a urine sample, he said that woman is practically

20 dead. You better get her in the hospital and get her

taken

21 care of, get some antibiotics in her.

22 I told her doctor, he said hogwash, there's no

way

23 that he can detect that in the urine. So, he ran a

24 culture. A week later when the culture came back he said,

25 I've got to get her in the hospital right now. He put her

1 the hospital for the staph infection.

2 Everybody's called Dr. Hyman a quack. He's no

3 quack. The man's on top of things. The problem is the

DOD

4 is afraid of what he is going to find out.

5 See, my wife, she's not really had a full

6 treatment from Dr. Hyman, she's had those little bits and

7 pieces as it's come up. She still suffers from all the

8 other symptoms that Desert Storm people have so I've got

9 live with that the rest of my life because I doubt very

10 seriously our government's going to take care of the

11 spouses.

12 Lastly, it's inhumane to have a treatment

13 available and not use it. I'm all the proof that you need

14 to show that there's something out there that works, and

15 these people need it.

16 MR. CROSS: Thank you, Mr. Lane.

17 Any questions from the panel?

18 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: I just have one question.

AndI

19 was reading your report on what you think might have

caused

20 it. But was there a specific -- you mentioned a SCUD

21 explosion. Was there anything else in your experience in

22 the desert that you might think you might have had a

23 particular exposure?

24 MR. LANE: On one instance I took a convoy up

25 north, and on the way back we had to reposition a load on

1 trailer. And as I walked out in the desert, I found a

2 little mound I got on and I saw several dead animals,

about

3 thirty or forty. And as I looked around closer, I saw

where

4 discarded chemical biological gear had been left in place.

5 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: Of the Iraqi -- from the Iraqi

6 soldiers?

7 MR. LANE: No, this was from -- this was on the

8 Saudi Arabian side.

9 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: So who were the owners of the

10 gear?

11 MR. LANE: It was our own military.

12 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: Our own military?

13 MR. LANE: Yes, ma'am. There were some brand-

new,

14 never-been-out-of-the-bag, CBR uniforms, okay? Now, do

you

15 know what that tells me? They left that area very

quickly.

16 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: And why were you there in that

17 area? I'm sorry.

18 MR. LANE: We -- our tractor-trailer that we

were

19 bringing back from up north, the load had shifted and

almost

20 fell off the tractor-trailer so I had my men to stop it

and

21 reposition it, and while they were repositioning, I just

22 walked out in the desert a little bit and saw all this.

23 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: Did you have any chemical

24 detectors or anything go off while you were there in that

25 area?

1 MR. LANE: When you're going on a convoy, you

2 don't take all that stuff with you. You just go and do

what

3 you got to do and then get back.

4 MR. CROSS: Any other questions?

5 (No response.)

6 MR. LANE: Thank you. Appreciate it.

7 MR. CROSS: I love my Seabees, too, by the way.

8 Tracy Gordon?

9 MS. GORDON: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

10 I'm Tracy Gordon. I was a soldier once, a jump-qualified

11 paratrooper with the 82nd Division. We fought the Gulf

War,

12 and as a consequence of my service in that war I brought

13 home the Gulf War Syndrome.

14 According to published figures from the

15 government, 108,000 of us out of 700,000 who served are

16 listed on both Gulf War registries, the VA's and DOD's.

17 spite of continued denials by the Pentagon, something's

18 terribly wrong.

19 I'm sick like the rest of my peers, but there

are

20 others who can more eloquently address that issue. I'm

here

21 to speak to you specifically about my son, Dillon. Dillon

22 is three years old now, one of those children of a lesser

23 God struck down in my womb by horrible defects caused, I

24 believe, by the Syndrome. Dillon was born with autonomic

25 dysreflexia, a life-threatening disorder. It causes

1 complications in the spinal cord, high blood pressure,

2 stroke and even death. He has seven tumors in and around

3 his lungs, three tumors in his spine, and six tumors in

his

4 brain. His left kidney never formed, nor did his lungs,

and

5 his heart's enlarged. He has to take breathing treatments

6 every four hours through the trach tube in his neck. He's

7 fed through a G-tube in his stomach, and he's given

massive

8 doses of medication including antibiotics for the reflex

9 his lungs and bladder.

10 Dillon is now paralyzed from the chest down and

11 continual pain. In one weak moment I asked his doctor if

12 was in pain. The doctor replied Dillon had never known a

13 day without it, so he knows no difference.

14 I have a part of a poem that means a great deal

15 me. I'd like to share it with you:

16 I watched her today, she has that feeling of

self

17 and independence that's so rare and so necessary in a

18 mother. You see the child I'm going to give her has his

own

19 world and she has to make it live in her world, and that's

20 not going to be easy. But, Lord, I don't think she even

21 believes in you. God smiles, no matter, I can fix that.

22 This one is perfect. She has just enough selfishness.

The

23 angel gasps, selfishness, is that a virtue? God nods. If

24 she can't separate herself from the child occasionally,

25 she'll never survive.

1 Yes, here is a woman who I will bless with a

child

2 less than perfect. She doesn't realize it yet, but she's

3 be envied. She'll never take for granted a spoken word.

4 She'll never consider a step ordinary, and when her child

5 says mama for the first time she'll be present at a

miracle

6 and know it. When she describes a tree or a sunset to

her

7 blind child, she'll see it as few people see creation.

I'll

8 permit her to see clearly the things I see -- ignorance,

9 cruelty and prejudice, and allow her to rise above them.

10 She will never be alone, I will be at her side every

minute

11 of every day of her life because she is doing my work as

12 surely as she is here by my side.

13 Thank you for your indulgence. I ask one last

14 thing of you when you get back to Washington. Please

tell

15 the President that his Veterans need help.

16 MR. CROSS: Thank you.

17 Any questions from the committee?

18 MS. GWIN: Do you know why you think you've got

19 Gulf War Syndrome?

20 MS. GORDON: I don't know exactly why, I just

know

21 I was in Desert Storm, I was in Saudi, and there were a

lot

22 of SCUD attacks, and there were a lot of dead animals

around

23 me, and I was healthy before I went and I'm sick now. But

24 my son's the reason I'm here.

25 MS. GWIN: Are you seeking any treatment for

1 yourself at this time?

2 MS. GORDON: Yes, I go to a private doctor.

3 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: What kind of -- I'm curious,

4 what kind of treatment is your private physician

providing?

5 MS. GORDON: For me?

6 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: For you.

7 MS. GORDON: Just antibiotics and vitamins.

8 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: Has it helped?

9 MS. GORDON: Yeah, some.

10 MS. GWIN: Tracy, what's the source of your

11 infection, and what are the antibiotics being prescribed

12 for, what symptoms?

13 MS. GORDON: I have bad diarrhea, continual

14 abdominal pains, and I have a mass on my left ovary that

15 grows and shrinks for no reason. They don't know why.

16 MR. BROWN: Was your son born just after you got

17 back from the Gulf or was --

18 MS. GORDON: He was born about a year after I

got

19 back.

20 MR. CROSS: Tracy, is your husband a veteran

also?

21 MS. GORDON: No. He was in the Marines, but he

22 wasn't in Saudi.

23 MS. KNOX: Did you go through the VA to have

your

24 exit physical after Desert Storm? Are you on the

registry?

25 MS. GORDON: I'm on the registries.

1 MS. KNOX: But you never had any treatment from

2 the VA?

3 MS. GORDON: No.

4 MR. CROSS: Tracy, thank you very much.

5 Sterling Sims.

6 MR. SIMS: Ladies and gentlemen, I'm Sterling

7 Sims. I was a member of an NMCB 24, a reserve battalion

8 that was sent to the Persian Gulf. I went as far north as

9 the International Airport in Kuwait City.

10 What I would like to do is tell you how on

January

11 the 20th, the 19th or 20th, there was a huge explosion

over

12 our camp at night. We was all in bed asleep. Immediately

13 the alarm went off and we was told to go to Mach 4.

14 We went to the bunkers. There was a heavy odor

15 ammonia in the air. By the time we got to the bunkers, if

16 we didn't have all of our chemical gear on, your skin was

17 burning, stinging, itching, your eyes were watering from

18 that ammonia smell.

19 That was passed off as a sonic boom. It is

listed

20 in four different log books of that battalion which was

the

21 command bunker post log books, the quarterdeck log books,

22 radio communication log books and also the security log

23 books, that there was a fireball in the air.

24 The next day it was passed off as a sonic

boom.

25 You do not get a sonic boom from a fireball. There was

1 Patriot station within I'd say four or five miles of our

2 camp, and we were told that the Patriot knocked a missile

3 out of the air.

4 Now, the President -- Congress passed a law, the

5 President signed this into law, it was passed on to the

6 Pentagon, for $3.4 million to go to Dr. Hyman for the

7 treatment of the Persian Gulf veterans.

8 There is a Dr. Joseph that is an undersecretary

9 the Department of Defense that has had this money tied up

10 along with a General Blank who is in charge of Walter Reed

11 Hospital, and there is a Colonel Bancroft at Ft. Dietrich,

12 Maryland. These three men have had this money tied up.

13 It's been in the law I'm going to say two

years.

14 To this day it has never been released for the treatment

15 the Persian Gulf veterans. I would like to see that

money

16 released also.

17 I'm from the state of Alabama. Alabama sent

18 veterans to the Persian Gulf than any other state. I

have

19 requested three or four times for this panel to meet

20 somewhere in Alabama and hold a committee meeting in

21 Alabama. This has not been done. I have not been told to

22 whether it is planning on being done or not. We

23 respectfully to request this committee meeting, one of

them

24 to take place somewhere in the state of Alabama.

25 I can furnish you the Air Force, Air and

National

1 Guard, I can furnish you the Marine Corps, I can furnish

you

2 the National Guard and the Navy to testify.

3 Now, I would like for you all to bear with me

for

4 just a minute because I'm going to take a part of my

clothes

5 off and show you all one of my problems. I have been to

Dr.

6 Hyman, I have been treated. As long as I stay on his

7 medication I'm fine. When I get off of it, I start

breaking

8 back out. And this has been going on since 1992.

9 MR. CROSS: Mr. Simmons (sic), is -- do you

think

10 this is really necessary? I --

11 MR. SIMS: I'd like for you all to see what I've

12 got here.

13 VOICE: See it, yes.

14 MR. SIMS: I'll just strip to my waist.

15 MR. CROSS: I guess my point is I don't doubt

that

16 I'm going to see something. I --

17 VOICE: Have you been over there?

18 MR. CROSS: Yes, ma'am, I have.

19 MR. SIMS: Sir?

20 MR. CROSS: Go ahead.

21 MR. SIMS: (Demonstrating) Do you all see these

22 sores? They started out on the back of my neck, from

there

23 they went on my arms. All these white spots are scars

where

24 the sore has been. You can see on my back, you can see

how

25 they traveled.

1 As long as I stay on Dr. Hyman's medication,

these

2 sores dry up and they disappear. I'm back on his

medication

3 now because I started breaking back out.

4 The VA has never been able to do one thing for

5 these sores, and I've been going to them since about 1993.

6 MR. CROSS: Okay. I think we get the point.

7 MR. SIMS: Thank you.

8 MR. CROSS: Are there any questions from the

panel

9 for Mr. Sims?

10 Is it Sims or Simmons?

11 MR. SIMS: Sims. I appreciate you all's time

and

12 trouble in bearing with me.

13 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: Mr. Sims --

14 MR. CROSS: We have a couple questions for you.

15 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: -- we have a couple questions

16 for you.

17 MR. CROSS: I don't know if you want to get

18 dressed while we're answering questions.

19 MR. SIMS: Okay. I was wanting to get my

clothes

20 back on.

21 MR. CROSS: Go ahead. Get your clothes back

on.

22 MR. SIMS: No, go ahead. I'll wait.

23 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: That's fine. The others that

24 served in your group, are they ill with the same symptoms

25 or --

1 MR. SIMS: It varies. Some of them have

rashes.

2 We've got men that is in wheelchairs that are totally

3 confined to wheelchairs that have not been able to work a

4 day since they were back -- got back from over there.

5 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: Are they receiving any kind

6 assistance from the VA to your knowledge?

7 MR. SIMS: One man has got 100 percent

disability.

8 I'd say 99 and 9/10ths percent of anybody that has filed

for

9 disabilities has been turned down. That includes me.

10 DR. CUSTIS: Is that the extent of your problem?

11 Do you have other symptoms?

12 MR. SIMS: No, sir. I have the whole nine yards

13 of it. The tiredness, the fatigue, memory loss, the whole

14 nine yards of it. This here is the most visible.

15 DR. CUSTIS: Do those lesions itch?

16 MR. SIMS: Itch and burn and sting like fire.

17 DR. CUSTIS: Do you scratch them?

18 MR. SIMS: I do in my sleep. I can control

19 that --

20 DR. CUSTIS: Is there any bleeding from those

21 wounds?

22 MR. SIMS: Yes, sir. I can go to bed at night

and

23 get up the next morning, and where they have bled I have

24 change my T-shirt.

25 My wife keeps my underwear separate, she keeps

1 towels and washcloths separate from hers.

2 DR. CUSTIS: Does your wife have any of those

3 lesions?

4 MR. SIMS: Yes, sir. No -- no, no. Not the

5 lesions. She's got a rash. But she's got basically the

6 same symptoms I've got. We have been -- both have been to

7 Dr. Hyman in New Orleans and been treated by him.

8 He found -- let me say this, he found the

9 streptococcus germ in both our urines. I went down

there,

10 he found a fresh sore on my back. He made a slide of

that

11 sore, and it had a yeast infection in it. Now, the only

12 time I've ever heard of a yeast infection is with a --

13 concerning a woman.

14 DR. CUSTIS: Do you know what medication he's

15 using?

16 MR. SIMS: That I'm using?

17 DR. CUSTIS: Right.

18 MR. SIMS: Yes, sir. I'm using Clendomyacin.

19 use a -- I take 150 milligram tablets, and I take about

20 twelve of them a day, sometimes more.

21 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: You said Clendomyacin?

22 MR. SIMS: Clendomyacin, yes, ma'am.

23 MR. CROSS: Do you have recurrence? I mean,

does

24 the illness go away and then after a period of time comes

25 back?

1 MR. SIMS: I take -- I take such strong dosages

2 that Clendomyacin until it can get you into a problem with

3 your intestines. I have had two operations in past years

4 my intestines, so I'm kind of scared to stay on it

5 continuously. I take it until the sores clear up and

thenI

6 get off of it. When I start breaking back out again,

thenI

7 have to get back on it. I do not take it constantly on

8 account of it can give you problems in your intestinal

9 tract.

10 MR. CROSS: Who's paying for these treatments

11 currently?

12 MR. SIMS: I pay for my expense down to New

13 Orleans out of my own pocket. Dr. Hyman has not charged

the

14 first veteran one red penny for any of his treatment, not

15 the first. He has not charged me, and I have offered to

pay

16 him. I have offered my insurance to him. He will not

17 accept it, he will not accept it on my wife.

18 MR. CROSS: You don't get the prescription

through

19 the VA or anything like that?

20 MR. SIMS: In the last couple of months I have

got

21 a doctor at the VA to prescribe small amounts of

22 Clendomyacin for me. Other than that I've been paying it

23 out of my own pocket. But that has just taken place in

the

24 last couple of months.

25 MR. TURNER: Mr. Sims, the incident you

described

1 with the explosion, that was outside Al Jubail; is that

2 correct?

3 MR. SIMS: It was over Camp 13 at Al Jubail.

4 MR. TURNER: I see. Did you personally see a

5 fireball?

6 MR. SIMS: I was in the bed asleep. This took

7 place like say 2:00 or 3:00 o'clock in the morning.

8 MR. TURNER: I see.

9 MR. SIMS: Security did see it.

10 MR. TURNER: And you spoke to them later and

they

11 told you about this?

12 MR. SIMS: Right. And it was -- Senator Shelby

13 from Alabama subpoenaed those log books to his office.

14 was allowed to look at part of those log books. Part of

15 was classified, he couldn't look at that. But it

verified

16 what I stated, I'm going to say in 1993 when I testified

17 before the Senate Armed Service Committee in Washington,

18 D.C., before all the Surgeon Generals of the military.

19 MR. TURNER: Did you feel any symptoms or

sickness

20 in the time immediately after that incident personally?

21 MR. SIMS: In about 1992 is when I started.

About

22 a year after I got back from over there, that's when I

23 started having my problems.

24 MR. TURNER: Thank you very much.

25 MR. CROSS: Any other questions?

1 (No response.)

2 Mr. Sims, thank you very much.

3 MR. SIMS: Thank you. Appreciate it.

4 MR. LANE: I've got a comment on that SCUD. I

was

5 an eyewitness when that happened.

6 MR. CROSS: Yeah, I did notice that you were in

7 the same unit as Mr. Sims.

8 MR. LANE: I was a detail officer when it

9 happened, and I can verify that it did happen. When it

10 happened, I was in the command post. It shook the whole

11 command post. I went outside, two people were smoking

12 cigarettes and saw it. I came back in and listened to

the

13 radio traffic and they gave the exact coordinates. It

wasa

14 mile and a half north of the camp, 550 yards up in the

sky

15 and so therefore when it goes up and starts back down

it's

16 in a trajectory where it would be it would have ended up

17 right in our camp or close to it.

18 But they sent out CPR teams and they started

19 getting positive readings and the radio network that

shook

20 them just like that (indicating). The next morning when

the

21 CO put out word that it was sonic booms, he was lying

22 through his teeth.

23 MR. CROSS: Thank you, Mr. Lane.

24 Lester Hallman.

25 MR. HALLMAN: Good morning, ladies and

gentlemen.

1 My name is James Lester Hallman. I'm 47 years

2 old, I have spent approximately 27 years affiliated with

the

3 military in one branch or the other. I spent a one-year

4 tour in Vietnam, rejoined the Reserve program and spent

the

5 six month-tour in Saudi Arabia.

6 I would like to tell you a little bit about

7 myself. I'm married to a school teacher, a 42-year-old

8 school teacher who has had problems since I have been

home.

9 I have two teenage sons, 19 and 16, both of which have had

10 problems since I have been home.

11 I came back from Saudi Arabia with the major

12 portion of the problems, and they continually

progressed

13 until I got to the point where I could not function.

14 I have lived on a farm all my life, I worked

15 Public Works as a mechanic welder. I worked average of

16 sixty hours a week at the Public Works plus I farm, I

havea

17 350-acre cattle farm, run about 150 head of cattle. I do

18 most of the work myself, or did, I do not now. My dad

helps

19 me, my dad's 77 years old. He has taken up the slack, he

20 and my two teenage sons have taken up the slack since I

have

21 been home from Saudi Arabia.

22 I cannot or could not get out and work over

thirty

23 minutes on the farm. I got to the point where I could not

24 climb. My job consists of climbing belt runways and

stairs

25 continually. I got to the point where I couldn't carry my

1 body physically up them, much less the tools that I needed

2 to do my job.

3 In 1993 I went to see Dr. Hyman, and Dr. Hyman

4 treated my whole family. Myself, I spent 12 days in the

5 hospital with him. Now, Dr. Hyman will tell you up

front

6 that he does not have the perfect cure, but he did help

7 tremendously.

8 When I went to him my blood gases were down to

the

9 point of me being in a wheelchair. Within the first week

10 blood gases were back to almost normal. I'm still on the

11 treatment. My wife has to take periodic treatment. My

12 oldest son has not taken any treatment in over a year. My

13 youngest son is currently on the treatment.

14 Dr. Hyman will tell you up front that it's not

15 perfect cure, but it is the only help that we have had as

16 veterans group. I have spent an average of sixty days a

17 year since 1993 with the VA. I've got a file folder that

18 several inches thick from the VA. I have been told that I

19 am crazy by a VA doctor, but he will not document it

because

20 of my physical problems. He told me I was normal and well

21 adjusted as we spoke on the record, but when I explained

22 physical ailments he told me I was crazy and I could not

23 walking around.

24 I have a temperature differential from the

normal.

25 My temperature runs from 95 to 97 degrees on an average,

1 which I have documentation of through an industrial nurse

2 my plant, taken once a day, usually around 6:30 in the

3 morning, and it will run from, like I say, 95 to 97

degrees.

4 My pulse rate varies greatly, my blood pressure varies.

But

5 this so-called doctor with the VA told me I was crazy, but

6 he would not document it.

7 The military tells us we're crazy now -- well,

8 maybe not crazy, but we have a mental disorder. The VA

9 likes to talk about things, but they don't want to do.

They

10 have helped me very little. There are some people within

11 the VA system that will listen to you. We have some in

12 Birmingham.

13 But as the most part, they are under the old

rule

14 of thumb as far as their thinking: if you are not

wounded

15 or physically hurt in the military in the combat zone,

you

16 don't deserve anything.

17 We have people dying, you've already heard

18 testimony to this this morning. We have people dying, we

19 have people that are put in wheelchairs daily. I'm a

20 personal example of that because I was to the point of

21 losing my job when I went to see Dr. Hyman.

22 My biggest kick is what kind of choke hold does

23 the United States military have on our government. Mr.

Sims

24 stated that the money has been approved for research with

25 Dr. Hyman. The military has got it held up. Why? It's a

1 law. Our President and our Congress have passed it,

signed

2 it and put it into effect, but the military, the DOD has

3 this thing held up.

4 I am in hopes that you will give us a favorable

5 report and get something done about this. This is one of

6 the few things that we can do.

7 Thank you for your time.

8 MR. CROSS: Thank you, Mr. Hallman.

9 Any questions from the panel?

10 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: I'll go back to some of the

same

11 issues I asked before regarding exposures.

12 Were you stationed in a particular area where

13 there were SCUD missile attacks or some other --

14 MR. HALLMAN: Yes, ma'am. Mr. Sims and Mr. Lane

15 are both out of my unit. I was present the night of the

16 missile attack. I was shaken completely out of my bunk

when

17 the explosion went off.

18 I do differ a little bit from some of the

theories

19 on that as far as the -- I don't doubt that we weren't hit

20 with something there, but I also firmly believe that the

21 area had been oversprayed beforehand.

22 I spent approximately three months on the road

23 close to the Saudi-Kuwaiti border doing road work,

24 construction work. I personally went through numerous

25 animal kills. And from my personal experience with

animals,

1 an animal when it's dying will struggle in some way. It

2 will move its legs, its feet, its head, its tail. You

will

3 see some physical evidence on the ground where that animal

4 has struggled. These animals did not. They died at rest

5 with their legs folded and their heads cradled.

6 And it wasn't just small numbers. We went

through

7 kills from fifty to several hundred animals.

8 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: Do you mean several hundred?

9 MR. HALLMAN: Yes, ma'am.

10 MR. CROSS: And you attribute their death to --

11 what do you attribute their death to?

12 MR. HALLMAN: Well, there was a little green bag

13 attached to most of the carcasses, and from my

understanding

14 of the chemical situation, chemical and biological

situation

15 in the military, that that was a marker for chemical and

16 biological agents.

17 MR. CROSS: Did these animals appear to have

died

18 in herds or were they stacked on the side of the road?

19 There have been reports that -- from the Pentagon at least

20 that one of the ways that people that live in Saudi Arabia

21 took care of animals when they were sick was they killed

22 them and stacked them by the side of the road. You're

sure

23 this is not what happened?

24 MR. HALLMAN: No, sir. There was no way.

These

25 animals were surrounding an area, we'll say a water

trough,

1 a feed bunker of some kind. They were not piled up, they

2 were -- they were spaced out like they had been brought

3 for a night's rest and died at rest.

4 MR. CROSS: Did you observe any insects around

the

5 animals or was there -- did you --

6 MR. HALLMAN: Very few.

7 MR. CROSS: That's significant because? Does

the

8 lack of insects mean something to you special?

9 MR. HALLMAN: I would say that there was

something

10 there to keep the insects away.

11 MR. CROSS: Okay. Go ahead, Mark.

12 MR. BROWN: Thanks.

13 Mr. Hallman, you mentioned that you visited a VA

14 doctor. Was this visit -- you probably answered this and

15 just missed it, but did the physician, the VA physician,

16 provide some kind of written diagnosis of what he thought

17 your medical situation was?

18 MR. HALLMAN: They have diagnosed me with

numerous

19 problems: gallstones, liver disorders, hearing loss.

20 Numerous. I've had three negative biopsies on my liver.

21 I've got a, just a great list of problems that I have, but

22 as far as treatment, no.

23 Arthritis is a main problem. I get up and

24 continually hurt, which the VA has not told me that I

havea

25 gene for hereditary arthritis. Dr. Hyman told me this in

1 New Orleans with one blood test. He said you'll have

2 problems with this the rest of your life.

3 That is one of the only medications that the VA

4 has given me, and I've had numerous. But they did

prescribe

5 a -- and I can't call the name of the prescription, but it

6 has helped to some degree.

7 But at the present time, from my waist down is

8 just like a toothache, all the bones in my body. Dr.

Hyman

9 has given me injections of cortisone at different times in

10 different joints to help me be mobile.

11 MR. BROWN: Thanks.

12 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: Are you also taking any

13 antibiotic treatment?

14 MR. HALLMAN: Periodically, yes, ma'am.

15 Clendomyacin.

16 MR. CROSS: Thank you, Mr. Hallman.

17 MR. HALLMAN: Thank you.

18 MR. CROSS: Louis Lodge.

19 MR. LODGE: Good morning, panel. Good

morning,

20 everyone.

21 My name is Louis Lodge. I suffer from

vestibular

22 neuritis, Minears and I have ulcers and esophagitis

reflex

23 disease.

24 During the time when I first discovered I had

25 vestibular neuritis and Minears disease, it was 24 days

1 after I landed back from the United States -- I mean,

landed

2 back into the United States from Desert Storm. I noticed

3 that I couldn't stand up straight, and that this bright

4 light was really killing me. That's what vestibular

5 neuritis does, it affects the nerve from the inner ear to

6 the eye.

7 During that time I went to the VA and they told

8 that nothing was wrong with me. And I got from the point

9 nothing being wrong with you to the point where you can't

10 prove what's wrong with you. Over the time I spent some

11 $37,000 proving the VA wrong, and as of yesterday -- and

12 first I want to apologize for faxing you all that 75-page

13 document, I'm the one who did that -- showing you how the

14 rating boards will suppress evidence. Instead of

addressing

15 the symptomatology of any disease, they would rather

16 suppress it.

17 I have been given, been offered mind-altering

18 drugs instead of given independent examinations to find

out

19 what is wrong with me. Why can I not see? Why can I not

20 see straight? I have been offered --

21 MR. CROSS: Mr. Lodge, can you get closer to the

22 microphone? I want everybody to hear this.

23 Thank you.

24 MR. LODGE: I have been given the wrong

25 medication, I was -- for my ulcers and esophageal reflex

1 disease, I was given Cortisone. And I started to bring

back

2 the almost 60 prescriptions of medication; I've got the

3 bottles. I've been offered Valium, all kinds of drugs,

4 instead of independent examination to find out what's

wrong

5 with me.

6 So during that time I went to the PruCare, my

HMO,

7 and they gave me the best doctors money can buy, and they

8 were the ones who said, look, let's forget about what VA

9 doing, okay, let's just start from scratch. And they were

10 the ones who found, said, well, this hypertension

11 medication, yeah your blood pressure is up a little bit,

but

12 you suffer from reflex disease and ulcers.

13 So they were telling me that hypertension, the

14 four ulcers I had in my stomach were based on

hypertension.

15 And they were telling me that Minears Disease, which there

16 is no diagnostic test for, which is a clinical diagnosis,

17 comes from hypertension. And they were telling me that

the

18 vestibular neuritis I suffered comes from hypertension.

19 Well, I proved them wrong. I proved it, I went

20 and I got information from Harvard Medical School that

would

21 prove everything that I said. So my problem now is not

22 really with the VA Medical Center because I went and got

the

23 doctors that I needed to prove what's wrong with me.

24 My problem, my real problem and every man's

25 problem out here now, is with the rating boards. Their

1 ability to fight the government, the -- fighting the

2 government's not an easy task. And they will fight us and

3 they have fought us every step of the way. They have

called

4 us -- you get on the telephone and you ask for help and

try

5 and get some help, and it gets a little hostile over the

6 phone, even with Secretary Brown's executive assistant,

one

7 name is Tyrone Brown -- Hermes. Very nasty, very nasty

SOB

8 over the telephone. He's called -- I've been called

stupid,

9 dumb, ignorant, irrelevant, obnoxious and all kinds of

other

10 names. When you start addressing the law to them and the

11 VA's duty to assist us in developing our claim they'll

tell

12 you that they don't have a duty to assist. When the VA

13 doesn't do its job we all hurt.

14 And so the first thing I would say for this

panel,

15 the first paragraph when you make your report out I would

16 like for you to say that the VA has the potential to be a

17 mecca for all veterans, to be the best service, the best

18 medical care that money can buy, the best system. We have

19 the best defense, we have the best armed forces in the

20 world, we should at least have adequate medical services.

21 When you make your report, the first paragraph

22 should say that the VA could be a field of cotton but

you've

23 got to get the boll weevils out of it. That's what the

24 problem is. You've got significant people in significant

25 places within the VA system that's causing all this

misery.

1 It's probably the Undersecretary of Benefits who will

2 instruct the regional offices to engage in unlawful

tactics

3 in denying the claim, engage in evidence suppression, and

4 not fully doing their jobs in completing the

5 symptomatologies.

6 If the government doesn't have the answer, we

7 certainly don't have the answer. We don't have the

8 capability, we don't have the CDC at our control and our

9 disposal, and we don't have the National Institute of

Health

10 at our control and at our disposal, and we don't have

these

11 kind of -- the Academy of Science at our disposal to

assist

12 us. We can't get the best doctors that the government

has,

13 and we're not getting the help that we need.

14 They refused, they have actually refused to do

15 symptomatology. These are things that the law requires.

16 They will suppress, these people are engaging in behavior

17 that is outside the ramifications of Article 2 of the

18 Constitution. They are going outside of the powers, they

19 make up new laws as they go along, they manipulate as they

20 go along. And as long as you all allow them to do it, and

21 if you don't bring it to the attention of the President,

22 we'll never get anything.

23 This is a matter of public confidence. It is a

24 matter of public confidence. When you send people to war,

25 they ought to have some confidence that they can come back

1 and come to the very agency that was designed and intended

2 to assist them. They ought to be able to have some

3 confidence that they can come back to them and say, hey, I

4 can come here and get some help.

5 Every man out here -- and I'm a counselor at the

6 Georgia Department of Labor, and I meet veterans, I

counsel

7 veterans every day, and I'm going to tell you, I see more

8 vets come in, they're sick, they have lost their homes,

9 their families, they can't work, and they go to the VA

for

10 help all they get is the shaft. There ain't nothing

wrong

11 with you. They would rather give us mind-altering drugs

12 than an independent examination to find out what's wrong

13 with you.

14 Now just recently, as of yesterday I had to go

15 the VA hospital, they told me that they want to be my

16 primary caregiver. Well, now, I had a slight problem

with

17 that. The very physician assistant that told me he wants

18 be my primary caregiver is the same physician assistant

that

19 gave me the wrong medication.

20 I spent $37,000 proving him wrong, and I

shouldn't

21 have to do that. I shouldn't have to do that. It is a

22 matter of confidence that the government of the United

23 States will uphold its agreement that those they send to

war

24 and those they send into hostile situations and harm's way

25 that they would take care of them upon getting injured.

1 Every man in here has a horror story to tell. I

2 have one. I walked around with Cortisone, 180 milligram

3 Cortisone for ulcers. Slowed my heart down 46 beats a

4 minute and I had ulcers. These lights are killing me, all

5 right? And I can't read like I used to read. I can't see

6 as far as I used to see. Now, instead of giving me an eye

7 doctor, I remember telling them when I go to the hospital

8 and I asked to see an eye doctor, they called the police

9 me.

10 So, it's at a point now where all we have --

and

11 when I talk about these boll weevils, if it wasn't for

boll

12 weevils inside the VA, we wouldn't have no need for you

all

13 here being here right now. You got some rotten people

14 inside that administration that's doing everything they

can

15 to suppress the information and the evidence.

16 That's hurting these people, that's hurting

these

17 veterans. They sick. These are real, live illnesses.

And

18 you know what? I know people right now, these guys, if

19 wasn't for my private doctor, if it wasn't for PruCare, I

20 would have stomach cancer right now, if they didn't stop

21 what was going on with me.

22 MR. CROSS: Mr. Lodge, can we get into some

23 questions from the panel?

24 MR. LODGE: Yes.

25 DR. CUSTIS: Can you tell us how you went

about

1 spending $37,000?

2 MR. LODGE: Yes.

3 DR. CUSTIS: What did you receive for it?

4 MR. LODGE: Say that one more time, sir.

5 DR. CUSTIS: What did you receive for $37,000?

6 MR. LODGE: I have eleven doctors, eleven

doctors.

7 They started from scratch. They did every test that they

8 were supposed to do.

9 They started with the blood tests, they started

10 with examinations. Emergency rooms are very expensive. I

11 have constantly gone through emergency rooms. I thought I

12 was having a heart attack at the time, but I didn't know I

13 had reflex disease and so much acid was running back up to

14 my esophagus, it was so painful I thought I was having a

15 heart attack. So they thought I was having a heart attack

16 too, until they found out that it wasn't my heart, just

that

17 I had ulcers.

18 DR. CUSTIS: This is all -- this is doctors'

fees

19 that amounts to $37,000?

20 MR. LODGE: That's doctor fees, hospital fees.

21 DR. CUSTIS: You were hospitalized?

22 MR. LODGE: Basically I was able to rush myself

23 the emergency room.

24 DR. CUSTIS: Were you hospitalized?

25 MR. LODGE: No, I was never hospitalized because

1 they didn't see anything wrong with my heart. They saw

that

2 it was ulcers.

3 MR. CROSS: And this is civilian care you're

4 receiving?

5 MR. LODGE: This is civilian care, yes, sir.

6 MS. TAYLOR: Where were you stationed in the

Gulf,

7 and were your experiences similar to the others that have

8 testified before as regarding a chemical exposure or

9 anything like that?

10 MR. LODGE: It has to be. I was stationed at

11 T.A.A. Campbell. I was with the 101st Airborne Division.

12 And I have actually met people in other battalions that

they

13 were no more than a mile to a mile and a half away from me

14 stationed, the battalions were stationed that far away

where

15 it's coming back. I got headaches, I get dizzy, I got

16 ulcers. So we got something out there. The 101st

came

17 under something.

18 And I know for a fact the first night --

the

19 second night I was there we came under massive

bombing

20 attack from our own Air Force, and I don't know exactly

what

21 could have happened. All I can remember, I kept my head

22 down, the ground was shaking very hard, and I just stayed

23 down and just kind of prayed that I'd wake up in the

24 morning. And that's basically all I can tell you.

25 But there are other veterans who are sick, same

1 problems I have.

2 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: Similar problems, you have

the

3 vestibular neuritis and ulcers you mentioned, are there

any

4 other -- because the other symptoms that I've heard a lot

5 about were the chronic fatigue and some of the other --

6 MR. LODGE: Well, what happens is,

vestibular

7 neuritis and Minears is so draining, for some reason

8 drains you of your energy. It really drains you of all

your

9 energy. And the 24 days, May 1, when I came back to the

10 U.S. I went to the audiology and I told them, I can't

stand

11 up straight, and then I've got pressure and fullness in

12 ears. And it's taken four years to find a diagnosis only

13 because no one tried.

14 I never saw a professional doctor, I never saw

15 specialist in the military. If there -- and there are no

16 tests to prove Minears, okay. And since there were no

tests

17 and the tests that there were done on me in the military,

18 didn't show nothing, it says your hearing is normal. It's

19 not about hearing, it's a nerve problem.

20 And so when you never get the right kind of

21 medicine in the military, the VA just said, well, it don't

22 exist. And there it is. But they don't try to do the

23 symptomatology, even though I had documents showing that

the

24 symptoms are there.

25 MR. CROSS: Thank you, Mr. Lodge. Thank you for

1 your time.

2 MS. KNOX: Can I ask a question, Tom?

3 MR. CROSS: Oh, okay.

4 MS. KNOX: I want to see, do you presently

receive

5 any compensation from the VA system?

6 MR. LODGE: Yes, I get -- I have ten percent for

7 hypertension, that's the diagnosis that the Army gave me

8 which it was not all that was wrong. And I receive ten

9 percent for a back injury.

10 I caught a 400-pound crate from falling on

another

11 soldier and it jarred the vertebras in my back. And other

12 than that, that's what they told me, they said, we'll

you're

13 getting something and then, you know, that ought to be

good

14 enough.

15 So it's -- it's kind of a nasty situation that

16 we're having to contend with with the VA.

17 MR. CROSS: Thank you very much for your

18 testimony.

19 Karen Tallhamer.

20 MS. TALLHAMER: Good morning, ladies and

21 gentlemen.

22 My name is Karen Tallhamer. I was assigned

with

23 the 265th Combat Engineers out of Georgia with the

Georgia

24 Army National Guard. I served under the 101st Airborne.

25 I was one that was selected to participate in

the

1 victory celebration in the Washington and New York. I

have

2 also been selected along with Tracy Gordon as one of the

3 twenty women soldiers who will be featured in the book

Sand

4 Storm. _____

5 I'm sorry, excuse me, I got lost here.

6 Our personal memorabilia gathered for the book

7 being archived into the Women at War collection at the

Texas

8 University in Denton. I have indeed been lucky to be in

9 this book.

10 Shortly after I returned home I became ill. And

11 with me being National Guard, I went down to Fort Gordon

12 get treatment, and I was told, well, it's just after-

13 effects, you're just -- it's just your nerves, it's just

14 this, it's just that, and you know, they'd hand me a

little

15 bit of Valium, they'd hand me something for my nerves and

16 says go on home. Well, it never got better, it just kept

17 getting worse and worse.

18 At this time I'm being treated for chronic

19 fatigue, chronic headaches, chronic depression, chronic

20 joint and muscle pains. I have stomach pains and I have

21 cluster migraine headaches to the point that it has

disabled

22 me. I do not work at this time.

23 When I went to the Veterans Administration for

24 help -- I had to have emergency surgery and have my

25 gallbladder removed -- when I went to the Veterans

1 Administration I was turned away and had to have this

2 surgery done on my own and at my own expense.

3 When I finally got into Keesler Air Force Base

and

4 was there for three and a half weeks and was actually

5 diagnosed with Gulf War Syndrome or Gulf War Illness.

6 My unit still at this time had not

acknowledged

7 the fact nor had they put me on orders, so all the

expense

8 fell on me and my husband, Sergeant Tallhamer, because

he's

9 Air Force.

10 We had to cut off my treatment and I had to go

11 home because we could no longer stand there and take any

12 more of the bills that it was costing us to be there.

And

13 against the Doctor's will we came back home.

14 I continued to get more and more ill every day.

15 have a Dr. Gore, which is a major out of the U.S. Air

Force,

16 that has been treating me. And so far over the last year

17 and a half I've been on over 150 different medications.

The

18 only thing they do know how to do is treat the symptoms.

19 It's because it's the same thing, they don't know what it

20 is, and if they know what it is, they haven't told us.

21 They're not treating us. I've been fighting

with

22 VA for nearly two years for VA benefits which I have yet

23 get. Every time I call them I'm being told that I am

still

24 being reviewed, I am still being reviewed. Up until

this

25 point they have been reviewing me for two years. There's

1 not a whole lot more they could know about me at this

point.

2 I was also informed that the VA in Nashville,

3 Tennessee, which was unbeknown to me, has no telephone

4 lines, so there is no way for me to check my VA claim in

5 Nashville.

6 My illness has gotten to my short-term memory,

and

7 my illness has gotten to a point that the financial burden

8 that it has put on me and my husband -- my husband is

twelve

9 years Air Force and was up until a couple of months ago

10 until he was cashiered out of the Air Force for

financial

11 instability because of the illnesses and the expense

that

12 it's cost me and my husband to keep up with my

illnesses.

13 Now, not once during the time that we've gone

14 through these financial burdens has anyone in his chain

15 command, or mine either one, picked up the phone and

called

16 and said are you all right, is there anything we can do

for

17 you.

18 As soon as we started having financial

problems,

19 and they started saying, okay, why aren't you paying your

20 bills, and he's saying, well, I explained to you, I've

gota

21 very ill wife. Her unit is doing absolutely nothing to

pay

22 her bills.

23 Well, this wasn't good enough for the U.S.

24 military. The fact that they were 11 months behind on my

25 disability pay didn't make a difference. The only thing

1 they looked at is that we were behind on our bills, and

2 were not financially meeting our obligations which made

3 husband financially instable. So they have taken his

4 military career away from him.

5 Well, at this point that leaves me with no VA,

6 that leaves me with no way of getting medical help, and

7 were already having financial problems and now they're

8 putting my husband out.

9 My husband is starting to come down with the

same

10 symptoms I was. We both are vets. He was there, he was

11 the Persian Gulf twice; I was there once for nine, in-

12 country for over nine and a half months.

13 They have refused to acknowledge the fact that

14 this is an illness. This is real, this is not something

15 that's in our heads. We are really ill, and this has

become

16 -- my son, you can normally count -- I've got an 18-year-

old

17 son. Normally within every three weeks he comes down with

18 bronchitis. He is constantly staying ill. I'm constantly

19 ill and on antibiotics. Most of the time I can't remember

20 from day to day what I've done or said or who I've talked

21 to.

22 Now on top of all the other strains, we've got

23 worry about where our income is going to come from, how

are

24 my medical bills going to be met? because the VA is still

25 reviewing my case, although I do have proof from the major

1 that is treating me that I am 100 percent disabled and

2 cannot function in a civilian or a military job.

3 My National Guard unit out of the state of

Florida

4 has got me on 100 percent incapacability --

incapacability.

5 They're saying I cannot function in my military job, but

yet

6 the VA has still not given me any form of an answer at

all.

7 Now the country that I went and fought for, me

and

8 my husband are fighting against. They took twelve years

9 career away from him, they're fixing to take his VA rights

10 away from him and, you know, where do you find that --

where

11 do you find that fair that not only are they -- has they -

12 have they dropped him in rank after twelve years of

service,

13 but they're also saying that he didn't even go over there.

14 He won't even have VA benefits. And this is all because

15 he's got a sick wife at home.

16 And there's -- there's -- you know, we are

17 fighting, and we've been fighting hard, and we've spoke,

and

18 the book, Sand Storm will get my story out. Many of us,

19 twenty of us women that will be in this book, it's going

20 help get our story out. But it's not going to pay our

21 bills. It's not going to make our illnesses go away and

22 it's not going to make them any better.

23 Unless Washington realizes that our illnesses

are

24 real and that they are communicable because my son gets --

25 is sick from here, from me, my husband has problems

because

1 of my problems. Our sexual life has gone down to nothing

2 because of the problems that we have, because of the

rashes.

3 We -- I mean, any time that we come in contact with each

4 other we both get rashes so bad that we have to be

medically

5 treated for it.

6 Now these are not things that we're just

7 inventing, these are things that are actually happening,

8 because we see the same doctor.

9 MR. CROSS: Ms. Tallhamer, I'd like to move into

10 some questions from the panel, if we might.

11 MS. TALLHAMER: Okay.

12 MR. CROSS: Anybody on the panel?

13 MS. KNOX: Could you tell us what the military

14 saying is the reason for your discharge? I mean, what's

the

15 final word on your husband's pending discharge from the

Air

16 Force?

17 MS. TALLHAMER: Financial instability.

18 MS. KNOX: And you're saying that he has lost

his

19 ability to go to the VA upon that discharge?

20 MS. TALLHAMER: Once he leaves, because of the

21 form of discharge that he's going to get, being financial

22 instability, he's going to get an under honorable which

23 means he loses his VA rights.

24 Now not only are they telling me that I'm not

ill,

25 but they're also telling my husband no longer do you have

1 rights, which is trying to erase the fact that he was ever

2 even there.

3 Now no matter what they say, no matter what the

4 government does, no matter what Washington does, what we

5 have is real. It's not going to go away regardless of

what

6 kind of decision Washington makes. We are still going to

7 ill, we are still dying from this disease, and we still

need

8 help. And it's a shame that we're having to go to private

9 facilities to receive this help when the government that

put

10 us over there should be the government that should be

taking

11 care of us. We had faith in them, we fought for this

12 government, and this government no longer has faith in us.

13 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: Are you receiving treatment

now

14 currently through the VA?

15 MS. TALLHAMER: Yes, I am, but it's only because

16 my husband is active duty. Not through the VA I am not.

17 has --

18 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: The medical, this is through

his

19 medical assistance through the --

20 MS. TALLHAMER: Up until he is discharged in a

21 week and a half, yes, I still do have medical. He will be

22 discharged in a week and a half from the Air Force after

23 twelve years.

24 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: And now, what kind of

diagnoses

25 are they saying for you illnesses?

1 MS. TALLHAMER: For my illnesses?

2 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: Yes.

3 MS. TALLHAMER: I have chronic cluster fatigue

4 headaches, migraine headaches on a daily basis, chronic

5 depression, chronic joint and muscle aches. I also have

6 stomach problems, a lot of stomach problems. I also

suffer

7 from post-traumatic stress.

8 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: So what kind of treatment are

9 you receiving?

10 MS. TALLHAMER: Every two weeks when I see the

11 doctor I'm given a different drug. At this point they --

12 is only treating -- he is a wonderful doctor, so don't get

13 me wrong, because he's only doing what he knows to do and

14 that's treat the symptoms, because he has no more

15 information to this.

16 So, you know, I get up every morning taking nine

17 different pills three times a day. And is this curing

them?

18 No, because they've got to turn around and give me another

19 drug to combat one of the other drugs that they've given

20 that's helping one problem, but causing another problem.

21 Now once my husband's discharged, my medical

22 ceases at that time. My husband is starting to show signs

23 of the Gulf War Syndrome, and he won't have any VA.

24 I had a five-week-old son when I went into

combat.

25 My son was five weeks old. My parents legally adopted

that

1 child because he doesn't know who I am. I thank God at

this

2 point that my parents did adopt that child because as

3 contagious as this is, he would now have these problems.

4 Although I love that child with all my heart and it tears

5 up not to have him with me, it was a choice we had to make

6 in his behalf because you don't come back after a year and

7 say, no, I am your mother. And it would get to a point

8 where I would not be able to take care of him.

9 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: I just have one other question

10 and then I'll let -- the financial problems that you

11 currently have, is that a result of moneys that you've

paid

12 outside of the medical treatment you've received from your

13 husband's --

14 MS. TALLHAMER: Yes.

15 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: Okay.

16 MS. TALLHAMER: And as a matter of fact, I've

17 still got over, coming up on $20,000 that is at the credit

18 bureau right now because of medical bills the VA turned me

19 away for to where I had to have surgeries.

20 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: These medical bills were from

21 private physicians?

22 MS. TALLHAMER: Where I had to go to private

23 physicians.

24 DR. CUSTIS: Don't you rate CHAMPUS for your

25 private care?

1 MS. TALLHAMER: That was -- this -- the bills

that

2 I got was before me and my husband were married. We were

3 married, we've been together three years. So when I had

4 gallbladder removed and the other medical problems when I

5 started getting really ill was something before me and him

6 met. So I wasn't -- no, I wasn't entitled to CHAMPUS at

7 that time. VA, yes.

8 DR. CUSTIS: At the present time, are you

using

9 CHAMPUS?

10 MS. TALLHAMER: At the present time am I using

11 CHAMPUS? I'm being -- I'm being seen by a military

doctor

12 at an Air Force base as my husband's dependent.

13 MR. TURNER: Ms. Tallhamer, do you believe

that

14 you were exposed to chemical or biological agents while

you

15 were in the Gulf?

16 MS. TALLHAMER: Yes, I do.

17 MR. TURNER: Was there a specific incident?

18 MS. TALLHAMER: Several incidents.

19 MR. TURNER: Would you tell us about them?

20 MS. TALLHAMER: I had one incidence where I got

21 it had been the first -- which sounds strange, the first

22 shower I'd had in about a week and a half, and I'm

standing

23 in the shower, all the SCUD alarms go off, I'm soaking

wet,

24 and what do you do. You cross your fingers and you pray.

25 And that's exactly what I did. Had I been able to get to

1 mask quick enough, I had soap on my hair, there would have

2 been no way I could have sealed that mask. I would have

3 still been exposed. I was standing there in the shower, I

4 would have been exposed. There was nothing I could do.

5 On several occasions when I was up in Iraq and

6 in Kuwait we come into contact to SCUDs which, I mean, it

7 got to where we lived in our chemical gear because of the

8 SCUD alerts were just continuous.

9 MR. CROSS: All right, Mrs. Tallhamer, I'd like

10 wrap this up if I may. We have more veterans to hear

from.

11 Thanks very much for your testimony.

12 MS. TALLHAMER: Thank you.

13 MR. CROSS: Ron Murray.

14 MR. MURRAY: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

15 As President of the Gulf War Veterans of

Georgia,

16 I'd like to welcome the members of the Presidential

Advisory

17 Committee on Gulf War Veterans Illnesses to the city of

18 Atlanta.

19 I'd like to start my experience -- start with my

20 experience that occurred in late January 1991. While

21 located at Grid N-Nora S-Sam 5702 from sheet number NH-38-

22 15, I was assigned to the 190th MP Company, 716th MP

23 Battalion, 89th MP Brigade. Our duties were security from

24 MSR Sultan which ran between Hafar al Batin and King

Faleed

25 Military City (phonetic).

1 On several occasions SCUD activity was in our

area

2 of operations. We witnessed the interception of two SCUD

3 missiles and heard the echoes of ground explosions and

4 others near Hafar al Batin. At these times we went to

Mach

5 Level 4 until it was determined all was clear.

6 One afternoon shortly after a SCUD alert, we

were

7 returning to our base camp experiencing bad winds, sand

8 blowing from out of the north. My team came up on an area

9 with dead camels and sheep. Upon seeing this and not

10 knowing what had happened, we immediately went to Mach

Level

11 4 and cleared that area. The incident was reported to our

12 supervisors, and after that I don't know.

13 In late February during the close of operations

14 Kuwait City, we encountered thick, heavy black smoke from

15 oil well fires on the way to Kuwait City International

16 Airport. About 3:00 a.m. we came upon a Soviet bloc-made

17 dispersement vehicle. A check of that vehicle was made

and

18 there were no contents on board that presented any harm to

19 me or my team.

20 In March after the liberation of Kuwait, we had

21 set up a base camp southwest of Kuwait City along MSR

22 McDonnell. For three weeks trying to breathe felt

23 someone standing on top of your chest. This was done

24 unprotected, your clothing exposed, soiled and smelled of

25 oil. Daylight, 2:00 o'clock in the afternoon, seemed

1 dusk.

2 While at this location, I met and became

friends

3 with the Chief of Staff, Vladimir Braun of the

4 Czechoslovakian Army. We discussed our units' locations

and

5 incidents. From our talks, he expressed concern and gave

6 his business card and said, one day you may need this.

7 My concern is that prior to going to the Gulf I

8 was healthy. Now is a different matter. I was ordered to

9 take Bromide tablets for six weeks, SCUD missiles with

who-

10 knows-what in them, oil well fires and treated clothing.

11 suffer from headaches, short-term memory loss, stress,

12 aching joints intestinal problems, rashes and diarrhea.

13 Diagnosed to date are the migraines and colitis.

14 I've been associated with law enforcement for

15 nineteen years. In November 1995 I officially went on

the

16 record at my place of employment with a list of symptoms

17 was experiencing since my return from the Gulf War. As

18 result, I have now been released from that job, thus

19 jeopardizing my professional career. Currently I'm

20 unemployed.

21 In conclusion, I would ask the Committee to

convey

22 to the President of the United States a request: To

23 acknowledge the presence and exposure to various agents in

24 the Persian Gulf War. We have an estimated 108,000 ill

25 veterans who need our help and treatment from this problem

1 known as Gulf War Syndrome.

2 Thank you. Questions?

3 MR. CROSS: Questions from the panel?

4 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: I wanted to ask one, and I

guess

5 it's regarding your -- you're receiving treatment now for

6 the symptoms that you have, or just for the two that you

7 said were diagnosed?

8 MR. MURRAY: Yes, ma'am, I do currently go to

see

9 a private physician as well as the Veterans Administration

10 Hospital here in Atlanta.

11 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: And you're receiving what kind

12 of treatment?

13 MR. MURRAY: For all the different types of

14 syndrome, but the two that have been diagnosed so far from

15 the intestinal problems due to the mycoses that were

inside

16 of my intestines, they diagnosed it so far as just

colitis.

17 The migraines, I've gone anywhere from -- I've

had

18 six different types of medications as far as the headache.

19 Now I'm taking the injections for the migraines to control

20 them. Just like Mr. Lodge was talking about earlier,

these

21 lights, I have to have myself in a controlled environment

22 due to the sensitivity of light.

23 It's a constant up and down sometimes battle as

24 far as, you know, like trying to get up sometimes and

trying

25 to move around. You have to constantly walk around with

1 note pads. I mean, you can be talking and just lose total

2 thought as other persons have testified to. You just have

3 control of your thoughts sometime, where you're at, what's

4 going on around you.

5 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: You mentioned that you were

6 working for law enforcement. Now, the reason that you're

7 longer working is because of your illness?

8 MR. MURRAY: For officially going on the record,

9 that is correct. And, you know, it's a battle right now

10 just, you know, pay your mortgage and the bills. I don't

11 know what's going to happen down the road. I mean, that

was

12 my livelihood, and it hurts.

13 MS. KNOX: Mr. Murray can you pinpoint a date or

14 recall when you felt like you were exposed to something?

15 MR. MURRAY: The area that we were in, I would

say

16 mid-January of 1991. I mean we had several SCUD alerts,

and

17 I'm not going to just specifically say it was the SCUDs,

18 could have been -- the way that the winds and everything

19 were blowing, I mean, we had, you know, confirmation that

20 there were high-explosive warheads on some of the SCUDs,

but

21 to actually pinpoint the area when we encountered that

22 particular area, I mean, it's just common sense in the way

23 that we were trained, and you get out of that area because

24 you do not what you're -- know what you're dealing with at

25 that point.

1 MS. KNOX: And you were in Hafar al Batin at

that

2 time?

3 MR. MURRAY: I was stationed in between Hafar al

4 Batin and King Faleed Military City. Exactly one to one-

5 half -- I brought my maps if you need to see those.

6 MS. KNOX: I was there.

7 MR. MURRAY: Okay.

8 MR. CROSS: Okay, Mr. Murray, thank you very

much

9 for your testimony.

10 MR. MURRAY: Thank you very much, ladies and

11 gentlemen.

12 MR. CROSS: What I'd like to do at this time is

13 take a break, and at 10:15 I'd like to reassemble and

Louise

14 Applequist will be up.

15 (A scheduled break was taken.)

16 MR. CROSS: I'd like to go ahead and get the

17 meeting moving again.

18 Louise Applequist, if you're available.

19 MS. APPLEQUIST: Good morning. My name is

Louise

20 Applequist, and I would like to thank you for giving me

the

21 opportunity. I'm speaking on behalf of some of the Gulf

War

22 veterans.

23 Today I speak with experiences on issues of the

24 grief of the men and women who served in Desert Storm. I

25 a spouse of a Desert Storm veteran who after the war

became

1 ill. Shortly after my husband returned from Desert Storm

2 was complaining about his health.

3 While preparing to leave for Desert Storm, all

the

4 men in my husband's company had to undergo a series of

5 shots. After these shots, many of the men were sick, my

6 husband included. My husband was still sick when he

7 departed for Desert Storm.

8 While over there, I was told the men were

watched

9 one-on-one on a daily basis as they took pills which were

10 supposed to be NBC agents. My husband wrote and said

11 bathing conditions were not their best, and the soldiers

had

12 to take showers in oil, rust-filled tankers. The water

was

13 often dirty and cold and far from their tents. They had

14 walk in the cold to and from their tents which added to

the

15 sickness going on.

16 Food was often eaten outside with the wind

blowing

17 all around. They could not help but eat a certain

amount

18 probably dust and parasites that were in front of them.

19 They also had to drive around for most of the day and

most

20 of the night behind graders blowing smoke in all

directions,

21 as if driving wasn't bad enough. They had to use T-shirts

22 or bandannas to block the dust on their faces, which

really

23 didn't do such a good job.

24 My husband after writing, he was saying numerous

25 times how he did not feel well, and especially with the

1 diarrhea. We left the military on the VSI/NSSB program.

2 sooner we left the military on June 26th, 1992, my husband

3 reported himself to evaluate his health conditions to the

4 clinic in Orlando, Florida.

5 He had reported numerous times about the

problems

6 that were occurring to him at the VA clinic; however

during

7 that time he had registered himself on the Persian Gulf

8 registry. From that point on, many X-rays were taken and

9 further reevaluation was needed.

10 I was a little curious about that because during

11 that time we didn't know what was going on, and from what

12 understand, they said that he needed a lot of X-rays. And

13 we just couldn't figure out what was going on until we

came

14 here. Nothing concrete was really done such as specialty

15 clinics concerning the problems he was having with his

16 health.

17 I would like to mention some of the other

problems

18 when encountered. When we looked for assistance through

the

19 State, they told us it wasn't their problem, it was your

20 problem. We could not get help with the State as far as

21 trying to get Welfare. Our finances -- it just got

22 overwhelming. We had no money to get medical help like we

23 needed. Also when he got out on the SSB/VSI program, he

was

24 -- we had only six months of medical insurance. After

that

25 six months was up, we didn't have any medical insurance so

1 we had to look somewhere else.

2 When he came back from Desert Storm, I had a lot

3 of female problems. Unfortunately two months ago I had a

4 miscarriage. We planned on having a family and everything

5 was stripped away from us because the military does not

want

6 to take care of even the spouses either. They don't even

7 want to take care of my husband.

8 We have so many financial problems it's not even

9 funny. Every time he has to go to the clinic he has to

take

10 time off of work in order to get to the clinic, and it's

11 whenever the clinic, you know, can spare the time for him

12 be seen.

13 But we've encountered so many problems as far as

14 trying to get help with the State. I thank God for the

job

15 that I have now that I can get some medical help, but I

wish

16 I would have had something done for myself as far as the

17 problems that I'm occurring through my husband since he

came

18 back from Desert Storm.

19 My husband is a good man and he works very hard.

20 And in the military he worked very hard also, that he

could

21 have gotten the help -- he should be getting the help that

22 is entitled to him. He should be getting the benefits

that

23 is entitled to him.

24 The VA is saying, well, you know, when we get a

25 chance we'll make an appointment. It takes about four to

1 six months sometimes just for him to get an appointment.

2 And I am so sick and tired, and I feel sorry

for

3 my husband and all the other men, the problems that

they're

4 having as far as the stomach. The stomach problem is

just

5 unbelievable. The diarrhea, the rash, I've got the rash.

6 From -- occasionally I get the diarrhea.

7 But I just wish something was happening in

order

8 for them to get the help that they really need.

9 Thank you.

10 MR. CROSS: Thank you.

11 Are there any questions from the panel?

12 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: Where did you serve in the

Gulf,

13 and were you in some of the same -- was your --

14 MR. APPLEQUIST: I was in the 249th Engineer

15 Battalion. We went over as a battalion.

16 As far as where we were, we were engineers, we

17 moved probably 75 to 100 times. We stayed in places as a

18 company. We went out as a platoon, we went out as a

squad.

19 We were in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait 20 different times,

20 moving from one place to another.

21 After the war was over, we also went and we did

22 demolition work on their equipment. And again, we were

just

23 all over the place, covering miles and miles.

24 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: And were there specific

25 incidents that you noticed where there were chemicals or

any

1 kind of other agent in the air, or --

2 MR. APPLEQUIST: We had two separate times, once

3 at 3:00 in the morning, once at 6:00 in the morning where

4 the alarms went off. We didn't necessarily see anything

5 that particular time, but the alarms, they're, you know,

6 to 100 yards outside the camp.

7 They were trying to say that it was truck

exhaust.

8 Number one, 50 yards out, truck exhaust isn't going to do

9 it, and at 3:00 o'clock in the morning there was nothing

10 running at that time.

11 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: And how soon after you

returned

12 did you start experiencing symptoms?

13 MR. APPLEQUIST: I think my wife said when I

went

14 over there after the series of shots we had, I was sick

for

15 like six weeks going, and I developed severe cases of

16 diarrhea while I was there, and it just has not gone

away.

17 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: These you felt were from the

18 shots that you received?

19 MR. APPLEQUIST: It could be either from the

shots

20 or from any number of things. Like I said, all the

21 traveling that we did, we were riding behind truck

graders,

22 and all the dirt and the dust that was coming up into our

23 lungs. The X-rays show that I have some kind of a build-

24 in my lungs. And who knows what's in that dirt. If there

25 were chemical agents used, it can be in that dirt that we

1 were sucking up also.

2 MS. KNOX: Did you receive the anthrax vaccine?

3 MR. APPLEQUIST: Yes.

4 MS. KNOX: And if you did, did you get it in-

5 country or did you get it prior to leaving?

6 MR. APPLEQUIST: We got it in Germany.

7 MS. KNOX: You got it in Germany.

8 MR. APPLEQUIST: I was in -- I went from Germany

9 over there.

10 One thing my wife did fail to mention was that a

11 lot of the expenses that we had as far as her, she didn't

12 have the female problems before Desert Storm either, and

13 had to put out a lot of money because she had developed a

14 case of cervical cancer as well.

15 And like I said, just from the time that we

got

16 out of the military, everything went downhill and we

have

17 yet to see anything turn around, you know, for us, or

for,

18 like I said, any of these people here that are all

having

19 the same problem.

20 MR. CROSS: Thank you very much for your

21 testimony.

22 MR. APPLEQUIST: Thank you.

23 MS. APPLEQUIST: Thank you.

24 MR. CROSS: Mike Tidd.

25 MR. TIDD: Good morning. My name is Mike Tidd.

1 On December 1990 I arrived in Saudi Arabia at

Camp

2 13, Rohrbach was the camp name, as a second-class petty

3 officer with the Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 24.

4 were near the town of Jubail on the eastern coast.

5 As a member of H Company, I was assigned to

6 security. On the morning of January 20th, 1991, at about

7 3:30 in the morning, I was in tower six on the east

8 perimeter of our camp. I was looking back over the camp

9 the northwest, I saw a bright flash and a double boom.

10 I immediately put on my mask and my suit.

Seconds

11 later the alarms went off and the command and control

center

12 from -- in NMCB 40, which we shared the camp with,

13 immediately came on the PA calling gas, gas, Mach 4. We

14 stayed at Mach 4 until around 6:30 that morning when the

15 all-clear was given. This was just one incident of many.

16 Since returning from the Gulf, I've had the same

17 health problems you've heard here, there's no sense me

going

18 through them all again.

19 Went through the registry. I went and did two

20 the preliminary health studies with the VA at Tuskegee and

21 at Birmingham. I haven't received any findings from any

22 these. Every time I would go I would give anywhere from

23 five to seven tubes of blood. I never got any test

results

24 back, even after asking.

25 I'm self-employed, and as a small businessman

time

1 is money. And I just take it upon myself, I've gone to

2 several private physicians in the Columbus area, Columbus,

3 Georgia area, and I've just taken on my problems myself.

4 can't afford to go through the VA system that everybody

else

5 can.

6 That just pretty much sums it up; I know it's

7 pretty quick.

8 MR. CROSS: Any questions from the panel?

9 MR. TURNER: Mr. Tidd, you were in a tower; is

10 that correct?

11 MR. TIDD: That's correct.

12 MR. TURNER: And there are other people in that

13 unit that are a lot sicker than you are, aren't there?

14 MR. TIDD: Right. I feel I'm one of the

fortunate

15 ones. I was up in a tower approximately twenty feet off

the

16 ground, and --

17 MR. CROSS: Mr. Tidd, you can thank me for those

18 towers. I was the one who placed those towers. I'm glad

19 know that somebody used them.

20 MR. TIDD: They were used, that's for sure.

21 MR. TURNER: Would you tell the panel members

what

22 Mach 4 means?

23 MR. TIDD: Mach 4 is the full chemical suit

mask,

24 the full suit, boots, gloves, with the liner gloves.

You're

25 pretty well protected. If you pay close attention you're

1 putting the suit on, you're pretty safe. I feel like my

2 quick reaction and my attention to detail really paid

off.

3 MR. TURNER: So that's the highest level of

4 protection that you get?

5 MR. TIDD: Right.

6 MR. TURNER: Is that correct?

7 You personally saw a flash?

8 MR. TIDD: That's correct.

9 MR. TURNER: And heard a double boom?

10 MR. TIDD: Right.

11 MR. TURNER: Had you ever heard any double

booms

12 like that before?

13 MR. TIDD: No. We had had -- we had had

several

14 SCUD alerts, but I had never heard the explosion

concussion

15 which I consider the double boom, and the bright flash.

16 knew when SCUDs were going over on their way to Riyadh or

17 Dihran several times, but never anything that close.

18 It's like the testimony before me, it did, it

19 shook you. It shook you down to your roots. You knew

20 something was going on.

21 MR. TURNER: So you don't think it was a

sonic

22 boom?

23 MR. TIDD: No. It was -- I've been around

24 aircraft all my life. Growing up in the flight path of

25 major metropolitan airport you kind of know that a

sonic

1 boom doesn't go kaboom or explosion concussion.

2 MR. TURNER: How soon after that event did

you

3 begin to feel ill?

4 MR. TIDD: A couple of weeks later I was put in

5 hours bedrest from -- I lost the word -- just sheer

fatigue,

6 worn out. The doctor said my body temperature was around

7 96.7 to 97, and he gave me a case of water and a couple of

8 little blue pills and said go to your rack and don't get

out

9 of it again until the 24 hours is up.

10 MR. TURNER: Do you know of other members of

your

11 unit or people that served in that area who became ill

12 around the same time?

13 MR. TIDD: It was always, you know, people going

14 to and from sick bay. Being on security I was kind of --

15 was either out on the perimeter or up at the standby tent

16 either in my tent, you know, trying to get everything

ready

17 for the next day. We were, you know, on 24 hours and then

18 off 24 hours.

19 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: You mentioned that you're now

20 receiving -- or that you go to private physicians now.

21 MR. TIDD: Right.

22 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: Are they treating you for any

23 specific illness?

24 MR. TIDD: I've been pretty fortunate. A friend

25 of ours is an herbalist I guess you would call it, and

I've

1 gotten onto a vitamin-mineral supplement program, and also

2 pepsins twice a day, that really helps a lot. But the B-

3 complex and then the multi-vitamins with the antioxidant

4 really, it seems to be helping a lot.

5 But my joints just are really the major

problem

6 right now. It's hard, when I sit for a long time I

guess,

7 it's hard to get moving again.

8 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: So the vitamins that you're

9 receiving help you with your fatigue?

10 MR. TIDD: Yeah, the B-complex vitamins help a

11 lot. It's called "Stressed Out", it's just a -- comes

from

12 the health food store.

13 MR. CROSS: Have you worked with Dr. Hyman at

all?

14 MR. TIDD: No, I haven't.

15 MR. CROSS: Okay.

16 MR. KOWALOK: Mr. Tidd, this incident with the

17 double boom, is that the same incident that Mr. Sims and

Mr.

18 Hallman were describing?

19 MR. TIDD: Yes, it is. They were probably 75

feet

20 away from my position.

21 MR. KOWALOK: And they were not in a tower?

22 MR. TIDD: No, no. In fact, I -- I have just a

23 theory, it's a personal opinion, that if in fact we were

hit

24 when a chemical biological, and I've been told a

25 Congressional source that we were, that material would

have

1 seeked a lower level, which all of our bunkers were down

2 below ground level. So, if something came into our area,

3 would have just kind of flowed with the ground and gone

into

4 these bunkers.

5 Of course, that's personal opinion. I have no

way

6 of proving that.

7 MR. CROSS: Any other questions?

8 (No response.)

9 MR. CROSS: Mr. Tidd, thank you very much for

your

10 testimony.

11 MR. TIDD: Thank you.

12 MR. CROSS: Larry Kay.

13 MR. KAY: Good morning. My name is Larry

Kay.

14 During my time in the Persian Gulf between

15 December of '90 to April of '91, I was with the Seabee

16 Battalion 24 in Camp 13. My job over there was an

17 electrician.

18 And before going to Desert Storm I had 23 years

19 the Columbus Fire Department, and the last four of those

20 years I was on the haz-mat team.

21 Before we went over, the Navy gave us our own

gas

22 masks, but the only thing is we didn't know what kind of -

23 what the filter was for or what it would protect you from.

24 Being on the haz-mat team I know there is no such thing as

25 one filter that will protect you from everything, and I

1 can't get the answer to find out what that filter was good

2 for.

3 On January the 20th around between 3:00 and

3:30,

4 I don't remember, I was in the rec center. Lately I was

5 having trouble sleeping, I guess it was because of all the

6 air raids, and I stayed awake a lot. Well at that time I

7 heard two booms and I took off running. Before I -- as I

8 opened the door and stepping out, I put my mask on and

there

9 was a white cloud around me with a mist, and it smelled

10 ammonia. I had to clean my mask out before I could put it

11 on. And it's my understanding, and I checked in to

12 different places that with mustard gas is, you can use a

13 large amount of ammonia which will neutralize it.

14 We also had a, we did have a ammonia plant

across

15 from us. We could smell it once in a while when the wind

16 was right, but it wasn't this strong, and you didn't get

the

17 white cloud, and you didn't get a mist with it.

18 I also, when the Iraqis set fire to the, blew up

19 the oil wells, when the wind was blowing north -- from the

20 north, we was getting all the smoke. Matter of fact, it

was

21 just like midnight some of the days, and we had to drive

22 with our headlights on.

23 And at the end of the day when I'd take my

shower

24 and I'd see the oil washing off of me. I may not be the

25 smartest person in the world, but I figure if you've got

oil

1 on you you've got it in you, breathing it. We didn't --

the

2 only time we put the masks on is during the air raid when

3 they had alert code four.

4 After I got back I talked to Dr. Langley, which

5 is, he is the program manager of the Georgia Department of

6 Human Resources, EPD. I talked to, I asked him some

7 questions on the long term and short term effects this

smoke

8 from the oil well fires would have on you. And he wrote

9 a letter and said that the short-term effects can include

10 irritation, mucous membranes, restlessness, breathing

11 difficulty and rarely leukemia.

12 Also you got sulfur compound in the crude oil.

13 When exposed to fire, it will turn to sulfuric acid.

14 He also stated in that that when inhaled it

would

15 cause irritation, breathing difficulties, and the long-

term

16 exposure to this is leukemia-type cancers.

17 Since I've been back I've had most of the same

18 symptoms everybody else has, difficult breathing, memory

19 loss, stomach troubles, achy joints and night sweats.

20 And my wife also has the same -- some of the

21 symptoms I've got. She's got the memory loss, night

sweats.

22 She used to be cold natured, any time it would get a

little

23 cool she had to cover up, but now she's just as warm-

blooded

24 as I am, and that's not natural.

25 I been to Tuskegee myself, and three other guys

1 started the same time, we went to Tuskegee for two and a

2 half years off and on. Of course over there you have an

3 appointment and it takes you two weeks to get another

4 appointment. And that's why it was two and a half years.

5 Also they come up with a pilot program in

6 Birmingham. I also participated in that. And I have yet

7 receive any medication, not even an aspirin from any of

the

8 VA hospitals I've been to. They could not tell me what

was

9 wrong with me, except in Birmingham they sort of hinted

that

10 it was all in my mind, which I knew it wasn't, but you

can't

11 tell them that.

12 I did get a diagnosis from Dr. Jackson at

13 Tuskegee. He stated that I had Persian Gulf -- let me

see.

14 Well, I don't seem to have it. But I had

Persian

15 Gulf Syndrome and chemical biological warfare exposures.

16 Then big man in VA hospital up -- I mean the VA

17 in Washington, D.C. stated over the TV and all that that

was

18 a misdiagnosis. But I never received anything else

stating

19 that was a misdiagnosis. All I know is that's what he

said

20 on TV. But later on Dr. Jackson stated that I did have

that

21 and the other personnel that he's checked had the same

22 thing.

23 Me and one other guy that went up to a

independent

24 clinic in South Carolina, we had -- they ran tests on us

and

25 every test they ran on us was either too high or too low,

1 none of the results was normal.

2 MR. CROSS: Mr. Kay, I'd like to see if we can

get

3 some questions from the panel --

4 MR. KAY: Okay.

5 MR. CROSS: And wrap this up.

6 Are there any questions from the panel?

7 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: I just have one.

8 You mentioned that you're not receiving any

9 treatment currently?

10 MR. KAY: No. The only thing I'm taking is

11 Tylenol that I buy myself at the store.

12 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: And you explained the

incident

13 in the Gulf War as an ammonia-like smell. Now you also

14 mentioned the use of the respirator that you donned.

Was

15 that prior to smelling the ammonia or after? Could you

16 smell it with the respirator on? is what I'm trying to get

17 at.

18 MR. KAY: No, I couldn't smell it with the

19 respirator on. But it was inside and I had to clean it

out.

20 Of course, while I'm cleaning it out I could smell it in

the

21 air, and the mist was falling all around.

22 MR. TURNER: Mr. Kay, would you be willing to

23 provide us with a copy of the letter that Dr. Langley

wrote

24 you about the long-term symptoms?

25 MR. KAY: I sure would.

1 MR. TURNER: That would be very helpful.

2 And you mentioned that Dr. Jackson at Tuskegee

had

3 treated you, or diagnosed you at least as having been

4 exposed to a chemical or a biological --

5 MR. KAY: Right.

6 MR. TURNER: -- agent. He still stands by that

7 diagnosis, doesn't he? He's not changed that, has he?

8 MR. KAY: I have not received anything from him

9 stating that he has changed it.

10 MR. TURNER: Do you know what he based that

11 diagnosis on? Did he tell you that there were symptoms

that

12 you presented or is it the account you gave of what you

13 thought happened at Al Jubail that he based that on?

14 MR. KAY: Well, he made some studies from what I

15 understand, and he come up with that, and he knows a lot

16 more, and he's the only one that even tries to half way

help

17 us veterans.

18 MR. TURNER: Has he talked to you about the

19 possibility that the oil that you had to wash off yourself

20 in some way made any chemical exposure worse? He's not

21 discussed that with you?

22 MR. KAY: No, he didn't.

23 DR. CUSTIS: When you were in Tuskegee, was the

24 process started for compensation?

25 MR. KAY: No -- well, I start -- you know, I put

1 in the claim and everything. They sent me a letter

stating

2 that it was denied, that all I had was symptoms, which I

3 believe they come out before that stating that you didn't

4 have to have anything but symptoms, and I had this

5 diagnosis. I sent that letter in that Dr. Jackson gave

me,

6 and they still sent me a letter stating it was denied.

7 Like I say, I was in the fire department. I

have

8 trouble breathing, I cannot fight fire anymore, so they

put

9 me on an eight-hour-a-day job because I've got seven

months

10 to go before I can retire, and they're making a job for

me.

11 But, you know, I can't do my job I've been -- I used to

do.

12 MR. CROSS: Mr. Kay, thank you very much.

13 MR. KAY: Thank you.

14 MR. CROSS: Don Reeves.

15 (No response.)

16 MR. CROSS: I don't believe Mr. Reeves is here.

17 Randy Wheeler.

18 MR. WHEELER: Thank you.

19 Ladies and gentlemen: I was in the Marine

Corps,

20 and then I was sent to Saudi Arabia from August '90

through

21 March of '91. While I was there I developed severe

diarrhea

22 and either from the food we ate in-country or the lack of

23 sanitation.

24 For this diarrhea I spent a week at the fleet

25 hospital at the border of Al Jubail. I developed a

rash

1 just before entering Kuwait, and developed asthma

after

2 returning to the United States. My symptoms have

never

3 cleared up and I have just been recently diagnosed

with

4 Ryder's Syndrome or reactive arthritis, and many other

5 ailments. My private doctors believe that the bout of

6 diarrhea that I had during my tour caused my Ryder's

7 Syndrome.

8 During the ground war I was an artillery

scout

9 observer with 3rd Tank Battalion, 1st Toll Platoon.

Our

10 Toll Platoon with tasked with protecting Gunnery

Sergeant

11 Grass' Fox vehicle, and providing cover for the spearhead

12 Task Force Ripper.

13 Gunnery Sergeant Grass was assigned as the NBC

Fox

14 recon vehicle commander for the task force. He has given

15 testimony to my investigation -- that investigation's

title

16 was "Circumstances Surrounding the Possible Exposure of

17 Sergeant Randy G. Wheeler to Chemical Agents During the

Gulf

18 War" -- and he also has just recently sent me some more

19 vital information on chemicals and their presence in

the

20 area of Task Force Ripper. I've enclosed that as part

21 this testimony as well.

22 I do not think we can doubt Gunner Sergeant

23 Grass's credibility or his statements. He's a very

24 knowledgeable and highly trained Marine in the all-around

25 offensive and defensive capability of nuclear, biological

1 and chemical protocols. I've taken information from his

2 transcripts and will present them before you today.

3 At a morning meeting on 22 February 1991, Recon

4 reported that there were numerous 69 Vescela mines. I

have

5 not studied mines, but apparently those were mines that

6 could contain some kind of liquid or some form of agent,

I'm

7 not sure, with the high probability of chemicals at the

8 first breach site.

9 Later on, on the first day of the ground war and

10 during breach operations the MM-1 spectrometer aboard the

11 Fox vehicle was registering a 1.5 out of an 8.0 for nerve

12 agent. The readings were present for as long as the

vehicle

13 was in the eight lanes of that breach. Several Marines

14 worked to complete the lanes wearing only Mach Level 2.

15 know that nerve agent can kill within a minute, but what

are

16 the long-term effects of low-dose contamination.

17 At the Al Jubail airfield, the Fox vehicle was

18 positioned upwind from the Task Force. The spectrometer

19 here detected S-Mustard on a scale of 5.0 out of an 8.0,

and

20 as high as a 7.0 for several minutes.

21 Upon hearing the alarm in the Fox vehicle,

Gunnery

22 Sergeant Grass sounded gas, gas, gas over the radio.

These

23 readings were lethal and would produce casualties. The

24 vapor was in the air for several minutes and a complete

25 spectrum was run and printed as proof. I remember this

1 point in time well.

2 Our toll vehicle was outside a command vehicle

3 the Al Jubail airfield. I was speaking to an NBC person,

4 and he was explaining what the hand-held CAM detector

was.

5 The CAM began to register one or two bars on its readout

and

6 that is when we heard gas, gas, gas over the radio. Mach

7 Level 4 was established and we remained in that posture

for

8 about 20 minutes.

9 This area at Al Jubail airfield and the breach

10 area containing nerve agent is where I believe myself and

11 other Marines had exposure to chemicals and may have

caused

12 our health problems.

13 Another incident occurred outside the Kuwait

14 International Airport. Artillery rounds containing S-

15 Mustard, a bunker with closed ammunition boxes registering

16 HT-mustard, and a reading of benzine bromide were

detected.

17 The readings at this location maxed out on the

spectrometer

18 for as long as the vehicle was in this area.

19 The Fox vehicle went through this area. As the

20 Fox vehicle went through this area, there were signs with

21 skull and crossbones on them, and grouped in areas set up

22 specific color coding. No other area in the entire 3rd

23 Armored Corps that Gunnery Sergeant Grass checked was set

24 or designed like this area.

25 The next day a team flew in, donned full

1 protective equipment and went into this area for

2 approximately one hour. The next day -- excuse me, this

3 team's main concern was to catalog lot numbers and to see

4 these munitions had come into the country after sanctions

5 were imposed on Iraq. This team verbally acknowledged the

6 presence of chemical weapons in this storage area and that

7 all munitions were either from Holland, Jordan or the

United

8 States.

9 What I ask today is, was I exposed to chemical

10 agents? Yes, I was. Have these exposures caused my

health

11 problems? Yes, they have.

12 That's it.

13 MR. CROSS: Questions from the panel?

14 MR. BROWN: Mr. Wheeler, are you working now?

Are

15 you employed now, or --

16 MR. WHEELER: Yes, right now I work for the Post

17 Office in Birmingham, the main plant. I work on the floor

18 as a mail processor, but currently I'm on light duty and

19 they have me upstairs working behind a desk, and that will

20 only last until the 26th. Until then I have to go back

down

21 on the floor and I'll probably not be able to remain down

22 there.

23 MR. BROWN: Are you receiving treatment for any

24 the diagnoses that you mentioned that you had?

25 MR. WHEELER: From private physicians I am.

1 MR. BROWN: From private physicians?

2 MR. WHEELER: Yes, sir.

3 MR. BROWN: And just to make sure I understand

4 what you're saying, you think that exposure to mustard

agent

5 in the incidents you described was the causative --

6 MR. WHEELER: Either from the mustard, the nerve

7 or, like I said in the first paragraph, was either from

the

8 sanitation or the food we ate.

9 The Commandant of the Marine Corps flew in when

10 were over there for morale reasons, and we had said that

11 were getting diarrhea. One of the -- one of the corpsmen

12 stood up and said, well, if you'd wash your hands you

13 wouldn't get diarrhea.

14 Well, a lot of us were going back and getting

15 different foods. Sometimes at night we'd go and fill up

our

16 water bowls and we'd get chicken, because the people that

17 were mechanics there that would work on the heavy

equipment

18 by the Kuwait -- Saudi Kuwait Cement Factory, they would

19 cook some chickens. They'd kill their chickens and then

20 they'd cook them up for us and we'd pay $3 and we'd have

21 chicken to eat instead of eating at MRE every night. So

22 we'd have a chicken. And then after that some of us were

23 developing diarrhea, and I had diarrhea real bad. And

it's

24 never gone away.

25 MR. TURNER: You mentioned an investigation

that

1 was being conducted of your case, Mr. Wheeler. Do you

know

2 what the status of that investigation is?

3 MR. WHEELER: No, sir. Lieutenant General

4 Christmas ordered that investigation and asked that, at

the

5 time a couple years ago because of the ongoing testing

for

6 the Persian Gulf War issue, that the VA continue the

7 investigation.

8 Well, I took that to the VA when I got out, and

9 all I got was, what do you want me to do with this? And

10 it's about two inches thick.

11 MR. TURNER: So how long has the investigation

12 been underway of your case?

13 MR. WHEELER: I believe it started in December

14 '92.

15 MR. TURNER: So over three and a half years?

16 MR. WHEELER: Yes, sir.

17 DR. CUSTIS: No response?

18 MR. WHEELER: No, sir.

19 MR. CROSS: Have you had any further contact

with

20 the Marine Corps on the level of General Christmas or --

21 MR. WHEELER: No, sir, Lieutenant General

22 Christmas is I believe currently at Manpower in

Washington.

23 I do occasionally talk back to one MEP back in Camp

24 Pendleton in California, speak to the Marines back there.

25 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: Are there other members in

your

1 unit who have experienced the same symptoms that you have

2 that you know of?

3 MR. WHEELER: The vehicle that I was in, a

4 Lieutenant Marshalton was the officer in charge of that

5 platoon. No one has been able to get a hold of him. I

have

6 spoken with --

7 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: What was his name again? I'm

8 sorry.

9 MR. WHEELER: Lieutenant Marshalton.

10 And there was another Marine that I was in the

11 same unit he was in back in Twenty-Nine Palms when I was

12 stationed there. He is now in Hawaii, and he says he

13 doesn't have any symptoms, but he was not back with our

toll

14 vehicle at Al Jubail airfield, and he was not in my unit

15 the time. I was with another unit when I was eating the

16 chicken that I think is a part of the problem, of my

17 problems now.

18 MR. TURNER: Do you know of anyone in Task Force

19 Ripper or the other units in the Marine division you were

20 with that reported blistering?

21 MR. WHEELER: In my investigation it states that

22 two Marines were burned from blister agent on their

vehicles

23 while securing hatches through a breach of operations at

2nd

24 Marine Corps Division.

25 MR. TURNER: Do you know who those guys were?

1 MR. WHEELER: No, I don't.

2 DR. CUSTIS: Is Sergeant Grass still on active

3 duty?

4 MR. WHEELER: Gunnery Sergeant Grass is still on

5 active duty at Camp Lejune.

6 MR. CROSS: Any more questions?

7 (No response.)

8 MR. CROSS: Mr. Wheeler, thank you very much for

9 your testimony.

10 MR. WHEELER: Thank you.

11 MR. CROSS: Bob Wages, are you available?

12 MR. WAGES: My name is Bob Wages.

13 I was an NBC Fox Reconnaissance Vehicle

Commander,

14 and in March of 1991 my Fox team was called to the site

ofa

15 possible HD-mustard contamination site.

16 When we arrived we were given a sealed package

17 containing the flak jacket and various articles of

clothing

18 of an individual who had been evacuated from the area in

19 response to the formation of blisters as a result of

20 possible contact as he was probing a bunker with what had

21 been reported to us as HQ, a chemical combination of HD-

22 mustard and lewisite by the original Fox team that was on-

23 site which had tested the clothing and flak jacket the day

24 the soldier was evacuated.

25 We tested the jacket with two Foxes at the same

1 time, back to back, each performing independent tests.

The

2 results of our tests concluded that the flak jacket had

3 sufficient residual of HD-mustard contamination present

4 register on the MM-1, mobile mass spectrometer. The less

5 persistent lewisite was not present in our finding.

6 I also have a videotape of this very same

findings

7 done the day we got to the site.

8 (Pause in proceeding for video presentation.)

9 MR. CROSS: Would you explain what that is.

10 MR. WAGES: Sure. What you're seeing here are

the

11 two Foxes back to back as I explained. The Fox on the

right

12 is the vehicle that I was assigned to. The Fox on the

left

13 was the platoon leader's vehicle. My vehicle is right

now,

14 they are the one with the probe out.

15 MR. CROSS: Is that the jacket on the ground?

16 MR. WAGES: Yes, that is the jacket on the

ground

17 that was received in the package.

18 MR. CROSS: And where did that jacket come from?

19 MR. WAGES: That came from -- the soldier was

20 assigned to 2nd Brigade, 3rd Armored Division, and he was

21 wearing the jacket when he entered the bunker.

22 MR. TURNER: That's David Allen Fisher, correct?

23 MR. WAGES: The best of my knowledge.

24 MS. KNOX: How soon after were you sampling this

25 jacket, how soon after the incident?

1 MR. WAGES: Okay. This was done within 24 hours

2 of the initial finding. We were called, we went directly

3 the site, and at that time we got the package, took it out

4 away from everybody else and started testing.

5 [To video projectionist] We need just a little

6 bit of volume if possible because there is an alarm that

7 goes off.

8 All right, what we have here -- [audio sounds

from

9 videotape] -- is the MM-1 string. All the white area is

10 basically garbage. It's fettle, wax, any other types of

11 contamination that can be on, something like diesel fuel,

12 anything that can create a contamination is on the probe

13 this time.

14 My MM-1 operator was one of the best in a Fox.

15 cleaned the probe, the approved method which was burning

16 off, reapplied it to the flak jacket, and as soon as it

17 comes up, as soon as he goes through the screen again,

18 you'll see the 1 HD-mustard come up. [Audio sounds

from

19 video tape].

20 The two people that are talking, the guy that

just

21 said "the 72 substances", he was the one that originally

22 discovered the HQ on the flak jacket. He was assisting us

23 because he was on-site when it all occurred. [Audio sounds

24 from video tape].

25 That's what the reading should have been, at

3.9,

1 to get a reading of mustard. [Beeping sounds from video

2 tape].

3 All right, he had cleaned the probe and he was

4 retesting. Notice the long white one is starting to go

up.

5 And I apologize to some of you ladies and

6 gentlemen that there's a little bit of language on here.

7 [Beeping sounds from video tape].

8 That's where we got the reading, 4.4. That's

the

9 MM-1 breaking down the substances that's involved.

[Audio

10 sounds from video tape].

11 This thermal tape was sent forward along with

the

12 flak jacket and the clothing that was in the bag. It was

13 sent forward to higher authorities.

14 MR. TURNER: That tape shows a mustard

detection?

15 Or, that tape printed out a mustard detection, it showed

up?

16 MR. WAGES: Yes, it did.

17 [End of video presentation].

18 MR. WAGES: All right. That is the entire tape,

19 it's a total of seven minutes from once we laid the jacket

20 down to the time we got the reading.

21 Any questions?

22 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: The person who entered the

23 bunker, was he the only one who entered the bunker at that

24 time?

25 MR. WAGES: To the best of my knowledge. All we

1 did, we came over and checked with the Fox team, and we

took

2 the package.

3 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: I do remember reading about

his

4 experience. He immediately broke out in a rash or how

soon?

5 MR. WAGES: Right. He had, within a couple of

6 hours, he came over to the Fox team that was on-site and

7 said, I feel this kind of a burning, itching sensation.

And

8 they said, you know, there was not much they could tell at

9 that point, they weren't doctors, so they didn't -- but

when

10 he came back within four hours and he was starting to

11 develop blisters on his wrist, one of which had developed

12 the point it was about a silver dollar size, and at that

13 point the Fox team on site stripped him of all his

clothing

14 and packaged everything up, tested it, and that's when

they

15 got the HQ.

16 MR. BROWN: Mr. Wages, the tape that we saw

coming

17 out of the machine, that basically serves as a hard copy

18 what we were seeing on the screen?

19 MR. WAGES: Correct. The numbers --

20 MR. BROWN: A permanent record.

21 MR. WAGES: -- that you saw on the screen were

22 transposed to that thermal tape.

23 MR. BROWN: And when you submitted that you said

24 to a higher authority, I'm not sure who you meant by that.

25 MR. WAGES: 2nd Brigade NBC officer.

1 MR. BROWN: And did they concur that this was a

2 positive mustard, or what was the reaction?

3 MR. WAGES: Oh, there was no doubt.

4 MR. BROWN: It was no doubt?

5 MR. WAGES: What we were doing, we were backing

6 the discovery from the day before and, like I said, they

7 came up with HQ which is the HD and the lewisite. When --

8 Lewisite is a nonpersistent agent, so the mustard was

going

9 to be there whether the lewisite was or not. And when we

10 found that, it just confirmed what we already had, what we

11 already knew.

12 MR. TURNER: Mr. Wages, where did you train to

13 learn how to use the Fox vehicle?

14 MR. WAGES: At the German NBC school where it

15 was -- I mean, it was a German-made vehicle.

16 MR. TURNER: And you're personally confident of

17 the capability of the people that were operating the NBC -

18 I mean the Fox vehicles in-theater, that they knew what

they

19 were doing, that their detections were real?

20 MR. WAGES: There is no doubt. The Germans

would

21 not allow a team -- we did have one team not to go through

22 -- not our platoon, but there was a team that was not

23 certified by the Germans, and they would not let it go

24 through.

25 MR. TURNER: Would you tell the panel what the

1 official reaction was to your videotape when you first

made

2 it public?

3 MR. WAGES: Well, once I made it public, I

4 received two phone calls from the -- from someone

5 representing the Pentagon stating that it was a fake

tape.

6 If you look at the tape, and if you look at a Fox

vehicle,

7 there is a training mode and a real-world mode.

8 We were in real-world mode when were making

this

9 test here. In the left-hand corner of a MM-1 mobile mass

10 spectrometer screen, you will see training or test. This

11 was no test. This was the real thing. We were

confirming

12 what was already there.

13 MR. CROSS: Aside from this incident, were

there

14 other instances, you know, when you operated the vehicle

15 when you detected other chemicals or --

16 MR. WAGES: There were times that we thought we

17 had picked up something in the air, and we would stop and

18 try to confirm. But if it was in the air, it was nowhere

19 where we could find it. And we were everywhere. We

spent

20 four months, or three months in Iraq after everything was

21 over.

22 MR. TURNER: Were you in Iraq when the

23 engineering, the explosive ordnance disposal units were

24 there?

25 MR. WAGES: Yes, sir, we were kind of a screen

1 between the engineers blowing up bunkers and the rest of

the

2 troops. We would get between the troops and the bunkers

3 downwind from the bunkers.

4 MR. TURNER: Now those bunkers would sometimes

5 contain munitions?

6 MR. WAGES: They would contain munitions but

they

7 were not totally identified as whether they were chemical

8 biological. They were just munitions, and that's what our

9 job was for was we were in between.

10 MR. TURNER: Did you seek to test bunkers before

11 they were destroyed? Did you ask to do that?

12 MR. WAGES: We had asked to do that, yes.

13 MR. TURNER: What was the answer?

14 MR. WAGES: That we didn't have time, we had to

15 blow them.

16 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: So you didn't, you weren't

able

17 to test any of the other bunkers?

18 MR. WAGES: We tried to find the bunker that

the

19 soldier from 2nd Brigade went into, but nobody could

20 identify it because the soldier was no longer there.

21 He could not physically take us to it. So

22 everybody else just kind of put us on a wild goose chase

and

23 said, there's 200 bunkers out there, go find it. And we

24 did, we tried our best. We stayed out there for three

25 straight days going through every bunker, backing the Fox

1 to a bunker, putting the probe in, letting it stay there

for

2 three to five minutes, move out to another one.

3 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: And of the ones that you were

4 able to test, there was no reading of Mustard gas in any

5 those?

6 MR. WAGES: There was no reading. Now, we

didn't

7 go in. We took our CAM, and we took the Fox because some

8 the bunkers we couldn't get close enough to.

9 MR. TURNER: Explain what a CAM is, please.

10 MR. WAGES: It's a Chemical Agent Monitor. And

11 it's a hand-held, looks like a carving, electric carving

12 knife. And you take that and you can put it up close to a

13 piece of equipment or in a bunker, and it's constantly

14 sniffing the air.

15 MR. BROWN: Mr. Wages, is the Fox vehicle, is

the

16 equipment that we saw in the video there suitable for

17 detecting air concentrations of mustard or other agents?

18 I'm thinking about the situation where you're looking at

19 bunker that's going to be blown, and you want to protect

20 your position downwind of it.

21 MR. WAGES: Right. We can have -- we can have

22 in two modes basically. One is a travel mode, it's where

23 it's constantly sniffing the air. And as long as it's

24 constantly sniffing the air -- excuse me, one of them is

25 ground probe where -- like what we had on the flak

jacket.

1 You put it on the ground probe, it generates up to 510

2 degrees and it burns, basically burns enough chemical

agent

3 to get a reading.

4 All right. In the air mode it would constantly

5 sniff the air. And at that time, yes, if there was any

6 small minute particles in the air, yes it would pick it

up.

7 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: It would pick it up to what

unit

8 degree? Because sometimes at .000, you really can't

detect

9 very much.

10 MR. WAGES: Right.

11 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: So it doesn't go that far.

12 MR. WAGES: Yes, it would pick it up and, yes,

13 would give you a reading.

14 Now, like I showed you on that 3.6, that is the

15 that is the alarm level for HD-mustard, okay. At 3.6 the

16 alarm would go off. Anything less than that you would get

17 short bursts or beeps, and that would give you an idea

that

18 something was there, you stop or you circle back around,

19 there's something out there. But to actually get a full

20 alarm it has to reach 3.6 or higher.

21 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: What level of detection would

22 there be if it was much smaller than say 3.5 --

23 MR. WAGES: As far as the quantity in the air,

24 will not tell you the quantity in the air. It will tell

you

25 it's there --

1 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: Okay.

2 MR. WAGES: -- which gives you an opportunity to

3 do other things.

4 But, you know, it's just a matter of -- the Fox

5 vehicle, and what really upsets me about the whole thing,

6 I can say a couple of things, in November the 10th, 1993,

7 then Defense Secretary Aspin and Undersecretary Deutch

said

8 we have no reports. None. That was November the 10th of

9 '93.

10 In October '93 I was going, wait a minute, I

mean

11 this is a month before and there had been printed articles

12 saying there was no possible contamination, we didn't find

13 anything. The Czechs found something, but we didn't find

14 anything.

15 You don't spend $2 million on a vehicle and

train

16 people the way we were trained to send us out to protect

200

17 -- or, correction, 400,000 people and don't believe what

18 read. We've told everybody this is what we had. We had -

19 the soldier, the first soldier I was telling you about

that

20 was in the original Fox vehicle, received a Bronze Star

for

21 being the first to discover contamination in the desert.

22 You don't give out Bronze Stars like they're cookies.

There

23 had to be some kind of physical evidence. It was there,

24 backed it up.

25 So, you know -- and people don't have to live in

1 these bodies that we're living in right now. I wake up

2 every day with a headache, every day. Not one passes. I

3 keep a bottle of pills at home, a bottle of pills at work,

4 because every three to four hours I've got to pop them.

And

5 I'm talking about just simple aspirin. The Tuskegee

6 Hospital gave me a prescription. It was good for three

7 times, you can refill it three times, and that's it.

8 Now, Dr. Jackson has tried, he really has, and

9 he's done his best. But when you have to wake up every

day

10 with a headache, body aches, you go to work, you come back

11 home, you go to sleep. That's it. You work eight hours,

12 sleep sixteen. That's pretty much it. That's the way,

13 that's the life most of us are living right now.

14 So, I mean, if there's anything anybody can do,

15 would certainly appreciate it.

16 MR. CROSS: Thank you, Mr. Wages.

17 We want to continue on. Is Colonel Dunn

18 available?

19 COL DUNN: Yes.

20 MR. CROSS: Before we get you up, Colonel Dunn,

21 Don Reeves available?

22 (No response.)

23 Mr. CROSS: Don Reeves. Okay.

24 Colonel Dunn, what I'd like to do is, I'm going

25 break for five minutes, but at 11:25 we're going to start

1 right on the money because you're important, your

testimony

2 is very important.

3 A five-minute break, 11:25.

4 (A break was taken.)

5 MR. CROSS: The committee is back in session,

and

6 welcome, Colonel Dunn.

7 GOVERNMENTAL INVESTIGATIONS OF POSSIBLE

8 EXPOSURES TO CBW AGENTS

9 COL DUNN: Good morning.

10 I am Colonel Michael Dunn, I'm an Army

Medical

11 Corps officer. My present assignment is as Director

12 Clinical Consultation for the Assistant Secretary of

Defense

13 for Health Affairs.

14 From April '97 -- pardon me, April 1987 until

July

15 1991 I commanded the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute

16 Chemical Defense at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland. I

17 was responsible for research and for providing instruction

18 to physicians in the Department of Defense involving

medical

19 protection against chemical warfare agents.

20 From October 1990 to March 1991 I was attached

21 United States Central Command as its chemical casualty

22 consultant. I advised the command surgeons in

Central

23 Command on medical protection of U.S. forces against

24 chemical warfare agents in Operations Desert Shield and

25 Desert Storm.

1 Under his direction, I conducted instruction of

2 U.S. and allied medical personnel on chemical casualty

care,

3 assessed the use and safety of our medical countermeasures

4 against chemical warfare agents, and was prepared to

assess

5 and report our experience with actual care of chemical

6 casualties should it have proved necessary.

7 Your committee asked that I describe the

8 instruction that our medical personnel had to recognize

and

9 treat chemical casualties, and that I give you my

assessment

10 of our capability to have recognized and reported them.

11 Further, you asked that I describe my evaluation of one

12 soldier in Operation Desert Storm whom we assessed

13 clinically as having been exposed to a blister agent.

14 During peacetime, the Medical Research

Institute

15 of Chemical Defense conducts a Medical Management of

16 Chemical Casualties Course called M2C3 at Aberdeen

Proving

17 Ground. The curriculum involves five days of classroom

and

18 field instruction on recognition and medical management

19 chemical casualties. About half of the students are

20 normally physicians, and instruction is keyed to their

21 educational level. Nonphysician students include

nurses,

22 physician assistants, clinical scientists and senior

23 enlisted medical specialists. Traveling institute

teams

24 conduct the M2C3 at remote locations including Europe

and

25 the Pacific several times annually.

1 With the beginning of Operation Desert Shield,

the

2 Institute increased its M2C3 instruction in courses at

3 Aberdeen and at posts in the United States and in Europe

for

4 the medical personnel of units identified as about to

deploy

5 to the central command area of responsibility in the

Middle

6 East. In October of 1990, I began work in the Central

7 Command area of responsibility, assisted by an

instructional

8 team from the Institute. From October to December of

1990,

9 we conducted sixteen M2C3 courses in-theater. The in-

10 theater courses included all of the material of the normal

11 five-day course presented over three days ending with a

12 demanding examination. Our pass rate in-theater was over

13 percent, significantly higher than our normal peacetime

pass

14 rate, which we attributed to our students' perception of

the

15 immediate relevance in the course work to their needs.

16 The majority of our 1,453 graduates were U.S.

17 military physicians and physician assistants from all

three

18 services. The total also included U.S. nurses and senior

19 medical specialists and 273 allied students.

20 Over 1,000 additional graduates from

Institute

21 M2C3 courses in the United States and Europe, also

mainly

22 physicians and physician assistants arrived in-theater

prior

23 to Operation Desert Storm.

24 The M2C3 instruction was specifically tailored

25 the Iraqi chemical threat in several ways. We

concentrated

1 on the recognition and management of exposures to nerve

2 agents and mustard, the known major Iraqi threats, as well

3 as to cyanide, a much less prominent element of their

4 holdings. We added to our instruction summaries of recent

5 experience of Iranian physicians who had managed their own

6 chemical casualties in the Iran-Iraq Gulf War as well as

our

7 own experience from observing some of these casualties who

8 had been evacuated to Europe.

9 Our instructional material included the newly-

10 published, in February 1990, field manual on treatment of

11 chemical agent casualties and four new clinical technical

12 bulletins by Institute authors keying on the recognition

and

13 management of nerve agent and mustard casualties. We had

14 distributed over 2,500 copies of each of these

publications

15 throughout the theater by the start of Operation Desert

16 Storm.

17 We added instruction to our course on two major

18 biological warfare threats, anthrax and botulinum toxin.

19 our post-course surveys, our graduates expressed a high

20 degree of confidence in their ability to protect

themselves

21 and to recognize and to manage chemical casualties.

22 We targeted our instruction to medical personnel

23 serving with units assessed to be at the highest risk for

24 chemical warfare agent exposure. These were the units

25 involved in operations within forty kilometers of the

enemy,

100

1 that is within the range of known chemically-capable

2 artillery and multiple-launch rocket systems. Over 90

3 percent of the physicians assigned to such units, mainly

our

4 ground combat divisions, were M2C3 graduates by the

5 beginning of Operation Desert Storm.

6 Of all U.S. military physicians in the central

7 command area of responsibility, about 50 percent were M2C3

8 graduates. In conducting training and follow-up visits, I

9 and my team members visited every United States medical

10 facility in the area of responsibility, and I'm therefore

11 certain that there were M2C3 graduates specifically

trained

12 to recognize chemical casualties in every location where

13 there were U.S. units stationed.

14 In response to a specific question by Mr.

Turner

15 about the location of Al Jubail, Saudi Arabia, we had

16 conducted an M2C3 course in the area in November 1990.

Its

17 130 graduates included about half of the medical staff of

18 the U.S. Navy Fleet Hospital Number 5 which was located

19 Al Jubail.

20 The last conflict where United States Forces

faced

21 a similar chemical threat was World War I. We adopted a

22 practice from that war in order to designate a medical

corps

23 M2C3 graduate as the chemical casualty officer for each

24 major unit; for example, Army or Marine Division or

hospital

25 unit. This individual in every major unit was attuned to

101

1 the need to seek out and report information about chemical

2 casualties so that we could rapidly share clinical data

3 throughout the theater. Operation of this unit-based

4 network involved contact with clinical expert teams from

5 institute.

6 For the ground combat phase of Operation

Desert

7 Storm, teams of two experts from the institute,

physicians

8 or clinical scientists, were placed with the surgeons of

the

9 Army's 18th Airborne Corps, the 7th Corps and the Marines

10 Expeditionary Force. These Corps-level surgeons had the

11 most accurate access to real-time casualty information and

12 were prepared to facilitate communication with unit

chemical

13 casualty officers, as well as to ensure that institute

teams

14 were placed with ground combat units at highest risk of

15 exposure to chemical warfare agents.

16 To conclude, we had over 2,000 health

17 professionals, including physicians and physicians'

18 assistants especially trained to recognize chemical

19 casualties throughout the area of responsibility. The

20 majority were assigned to the ground combat units at

highest

21 risk for exposure.

22 There was a strong expectation of seeing

chemical

23 casualties and a solid network in place to share immediate

24 clinical information about them. In January of 1991 we

made

25 use of this network to gather complete information on

safety

102

1 and potential side effects from the administration of

2 pyridostigmine bromide to 46,000 members of the 18th

3 Airborne Corps who took this compound for several days

4 during the initial SCUD missile attacks at the beginning

5 Operation Desert Storm. We published this information

later

6 in 1991 in The Journal of the American Medical

Association.

7 Based on the large number of trained medical

8 observers we had everywhere in-theater looking for

chemical

9 casualties, on their ability to report information to our

10 expert teams, and on our proven ability to collect that

11 information using our network, I have no doubt about our

12 ability to have recognized and reported a chemical

warfare

13 agent attack. We have the strongest medical reasons to

14 rapidly share such information all through the theater,

and

15 commanders at all levels were well prepared to help us do

16 so.

17 There is nothing subtle or low-dose about

18 intentional battlefield use of chemical warfare agents.

19 know from the eight years of the Iran-Iraq war that Iraq

20 repeatedly employed both sulphur mustard and nerve agent

21 causing over 40,000 chemical casualties based on United

22 Nations reports. There was absolutely no difficulty in

23 recognizing those chemical warfare agent attacks.

24 The purpose of a chemical warfare agent attack

25 to cause large numbers of casualties, the injuries are

quite

103

1 severe. It's essentially impossible to miss. So, based

2 that kind of data, and based on that experience I can

state

3 with high confidence that intentional use, battlefield use

4 of CW simply did not occur against the United States

forces

5 in Operation Desert Storm.

6 On the other hand, based on what is known about

7 the effects of chemical warfare agents on the human body,

8 have seen no medical information that would cause me to

9 speculate or form a judgement on whether accidental

10 subclinical or low-level releases or exposures may

have

11 occurred with one exception, a soldier whom I evaluated

12 March the 3rd of 1991. On that date I was in Iraq with

13 support units to the rear of the 3rd Armored Division.

14 and another physician were the clinical expert team for

7th

15 Corps as I described earlier.

16 I was called to see a soldier who was a cavalry

17 scout in a 3rd Armored Division unit, 4th Squadron,

8th

18 Cavalry, 2nd Brigade. He had soiled his clothing

while

19 exploring an underground bunker complex late on the 1st of

20 March and he had developed four small blisters, one to two-

21 centimeter diameter each, on his left arm early the

22 following day. He was evaluated, decontaminated and

managed

23 as a blister agent exposure by physician assistants and

24 physicians in his unit, all of them M2C3 graduates.

25 Testing, as you saw a little bit earlier, using

104

1 Fox vehicle mass spectroscopy detection showed positive

2 specter for Mustard or Mustard-related compounds from his

3 clothing and from the bunker complex that he had

explored.

4 When I examined the soldier on March the 3rd, the told me

5 that he felt well and had lost no duty time. He was not

6 hospitalized, he was not evacuated, he was returned to

duty

7 with his unit. His only abnormality was the four small

8 blisters, each surrounded by a small rim of reddened skin.

9 Based on his history, especially on the time

lapse

10 of eight hours between the exploration of the bunker and

his

11 first symptoms, I agreed with the diagnoses of blister

agent

12 exposure and confirmed it on clinical grounds.

13 I obtained a urine sample for later testing for

14 thiodiglycol which is a breakdown product of mustard in

the

15 body and I discussed the event with the medical personnel

16 the soldier's unit, with Major Cassinelli, the 3rd Armored

17 Division surgeon, and with Lieutenant Colonel Adams, the

3rd

18 Armored Division chemical officer. The chemical personnel

19 retained the soldier's clothing and the Fox vehicle

specter

20 tapes for later analysis.

21 I also discussed the event with officers at

22 Central Command Headquarters and was informed that the

23 exposure was reported to the press during Central

Command's

24 daily briefing.

25 Later testing to confirm the exposure as

mustard

105

1 by analysis of clothing samples at an analytical

laboratory

2 in the United States was negative, possibly due to

3 evaporative loss of what was, at most, a low or minimal

4 level of contamination.

5 The urine sample that I obtained showed no

6 evidence of that mustard breakdown product, the

7 thiodiglycol, on analysis at my institute's laboratory.

8 expected this analysis to be negative as well based on

the

9 very low level of exposure.

10 We did publish the event as an unconfirmed

blister

11 agent exposure in an article in the Journal of the U.S.

Army

12 Medical Department in January 1992, Pages 34 to 36, and I

13 have given copies of that publication to Mr. Turner.

14 I would conclude that the soldier may well have

15 been exposed to a low level of mustard during his

16 exploration of the bunker complex. The exposure clearly

did

17 not appear to me to represent intentional battlefield use

18 a chemical warfare agent by Iraq which, as I've said, in

19 own experience with Iran-Iraq war casualties, as well as

the

20 experience of many others, would have produced far more

21 exposed persons and more severe effects as it did on every

22 occasion when it was used by Iraq in that conflict.

23 In order to clarify this, if I can depart from

the

24 prepared testimony for a sentence or two, even now and in

25 recent decades, individuals in France and Belgium who come

106

1 into contact with mustard-contaminated material that has

2 been underground since World War I experience exactly

this

3 kind of blister effects and symptoms. So it's very

clear,

4 just on medical grounds, that the effects of mustard

5 underground for many decades can produce the symptoms in

6 folks who are exposed to that material many, many years

7 later.

8 Now, without solid chemical evidence to prove

that

9 the exposure was in fact related to mustard, the strongest

10 indication I have to support mustard as the cause was the

11 eight-hour delay, that latent period between the exposure

12 and the time of first symptoms. An exposure later on that

13 the soldier might not have noticed to one of many other

14 rapidly-corrosive or skin-injury compounds remains as

15 alternative possibility in the absence of full chemical

16 confirmation.

17 I think the importance of this episode to the

18 committee's work is to demonstrate for you that we

really

19 did have a large number of trained people expecting and

20 looking for chemical casualties and a solid system in

place

21 to report that information. Because we were so well

22 prepared, this event was very rapidly reported and

assessed

23 and later studied in depth and published.

24 Thank you.

25 MR. RIOS: Let me ask you, Colonel, was there

any

107

1 similar type of preparation made for assessing and dealing

2 with possible low levels of exposure to these agents and

3 what the long-term effects of those exposures may be,

might

4 have been?

5 COL DUNN: There was not.

6 MR. RIOS: None at all?

7 COL DUNN: In our course we taught the very

little

8 that is known about low-level subclinical exposure to

9 chemical warfare agents. By definition, of course,

10 subclinical exposure is subclinical, and we had our hands

11 full with being sure that we could immediately recognize

and

12 properly treat battlefield-level exposure to chemical

13 warfare agents.

14 What we were able to relate was published

15 information which is in primarily the industrial hygiene

and

16 toxicology literature of workers who had repeated low-dose

17 exposure both to mustard and to nerve agent in industrial

18 production facilities in Europe and Asia. And I

questioned

19 whether single low-dose exposure would or would not be

20 relevant to the kind of stuff that is available in the

21 literature about low-dose exposure over many years.

22 A tough subject, a very pertinent subject. We

did

23 not key on it. We keyed in our instruction on how to

24 recognize the battlefield exposures which we expected.

25 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: I guess just to follow up on

the

108

1 question that Rolando just asked, the low-dose exposure, I

2 understand it one-time exposure wouldn't have an impact if

3 it was very low dose, possibly. Do we have --

4 COL DUNN: I don't know that. What I do, what I

5 know is that we have an absence of data.

6 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: Right. That's the problem, is

7 we don't know.

8 COL DUNN: Right.

9 MR. TURNER: Colonel Dunn, are you satisfied to

10 reasonable degree of medical certainty that the soldier

who

11 explored the Iraqi bunker was exposed to mustard?

12 COL DUNN: I would be much more comfortable with

13 that statement if I had had the backup analytical

14 confirmation in a Stateside laboratory.

15 Lieutenant Colonel Martin is a chemical officer,

16 and he'll be speaking this afternoon. And he is qualified

17 as I am not -- I'm a medical doctor -- he can comment on

the

18 factors which affect the accuracy of Fox vehicle spectra.

19 What we reported, again in the medical

literature,

20 was we thought on clinical grounds that this was mustard

21 exposure, but we were unable to chemically confirm it.

22 MR. TURNER: You were not surprised that you

were

23 unable to chemically confirm it, given the low exposure

24 level, though, were you?

25 COL DUNN: For example, my laboratory which

looks

109

1 for thiodiglycol in the urine has a lower limit of

detection

2 for that of something on the order of five nanograms per

3 milliliter. In order to get that level in the urine in

4 experimental animals, they have to be exposed to at least

5 microgram levels of mustard on the skin.

6 Our clinical colleagues in Europe who did the

same

7 tests in the urine of Iran-Iraq War mustard casualties

would

8 only pick up positives in thiodiglycol in the urine from

9 those who had much greater areas of skin involvement. So

10 thought it was worth the effort to collect and analyze the

11 sample, but we weren't optimistic that we would pick it

up.

12 MR. TURNER: So given the small area of the

13 blisters --

14 COL DUNN: I'm not surprised.

15 MR. TURNER: -- it's not surprising?

16 COL DUNN: I'm not surprised that the assay was

17 negative.

18 MR. TURNER: And on the retesting of the flak

19 jacket and other clothing that was shipped back to the

20 States --

21 COL DUNN: Okay.

22 MR. TURNER: -- that's not surprising to you,

23 either, or is that something for Martin?

24 COL DUNN: My area of expertise is medical

25 clinical testing, body fluids, stuff like that. Colonel

110

1 Martin is much better qualified to comment on the testing

2 clothing items.

3 MR. CROSS: Has there been a follow-up

evaluation

4 on that particular soldier to see, five years later, you

5 know, what his current state of health is?

6 COL DUNN: I think that you could easily obtain

7 that information. I left the Institute of Chemical

Defense

8 in July of 1991, and I haven't been personally involved in

9 that follow-up. But it would seem to me that the

committee

10 could obtain that information.

11 MS. KNOX: COL Dunn -- I'm sorry --

12 MR. CROSS: Go ahead.

13 MS. KNOX: I was curious. With your background

14 chemical and biological warfare, why do you think that

15 Saddam Hussein was doing research on such things as

16 aflatoxin?

17 COL DUNN: To ask me to speculate on the mind

18 Saddam Hussein was one of the few questions that I wasn't

19 expecting to get this morning, ma'am. I don't --

20 MS. KNOX: What kind of symptoms --

21 COL DUNN: I don't --

22 MS. KNOX: -- do you think that would cause?

23 COL DUNN: I don't view him as a very nice

person,

24 but --

25 MS. KNOX: Right.

111

1 COL DUNN: -- but what I will tell you is that

2 just going back to the database that we have from the Iran-

3 Iraq War where they really went at each other with chem,

the

4 purpose in that conflict was to produce immediate

5 disability, immediate large numbers of severe casualties

6 order to gain a tactical advantage, so that none of our

7 assessments of what we might come up against -- all of our

8 assessments were keyed on the intentional use of CW by

Iraq

9 in that way that they were well trained and well

experienced

10 in doing, if that's any help.

11 MR. RIOS: Colonel Dunn, given your experience

and

12 knowledge and the fact that you were over there expecting

13 direct chemical attack, could you -- is it fair to say

that

14 you can't categorically tell this committee that there was

15 no, that it was not possible that there couldn't have been

16 some level of exposure to our troops that would have

17 resulted in some of the long-term effects we've been

hearing

18 about over the past year and a half?

19 COL DUNN: That's a very important question, and

20 let me take the time to answer it carefully.

21 On the one hand, I think very easily the high

22 point of my professional life up until now has been to

meet

23 and work with those 2,000 or so really magnificent young

24 physicians, PAs and nurses that we put over into the Gulf.

25 They were all really in a high state of readiness to

112

1 recognize and deal with the kind of battlefield exposures

2 CW that Iraq had practiced for the preceding eight years.

3 So I'm very comfortable in saying just based on

4 their motivation and their competence, just the tremendous

5 impression I had of their ability and their honesty all

over

6 the theater, that had intentional battlefield use of CW by

7 Iraq occurred, we would have known it and we would have

8 dealt with it, and we would have dealt with it very well.

9 I've just got the greatest amount of respect for all of

10 those young people that we taught and worked with.

11 The other aspect of your question, can we

exclude

12 at the molecular level any form or dose of exposure which

13 was subclinical, no, I certainly cannot do that. I don't

14 have the data to say that.

15 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: As a follow-up, going back to

16 the lack of data, is Aberdeen Proving Ground exploring the

17 possibility of low-level exposure and trying to come up

with

18 some data to possibly suggest that there could have been

the

19 use of chemical weapons at a lower level that would have

20 some impact or effect?

21 COL DUNN: Having been out of the responsibility

22 loop for that since about July of 1991, ma'am, I would

23 probably refer you to Colonel Koenigsberg who's head of

our

24 DOD PGI team. He's here today, and I'm certain that we

25 could facilitate contact between you and the responsible

113

1 folks at Aberdeen Proving Ground. I'd rather have a

well-

2 researched solid answer to your question than for me to

3 speculate.

4 MR. CROSS: Part of your testimony really

zeroed

5 in on direct usage and --

6 COL DUNN: Yes.

7 MR. CROSS: -- and I understand what you're

saying

8 now. But I think we're hearing more and more about

9 incidental usage, about maybe where we were bombing

targets

10 in Iraq and then with the prevailing winds and potential

11 fallout over the Kuwaiti AOR.

12 COL DUNN: Yes.

13 MR. CROSS: What's your gut feel that chemical

14 exposure happening that way?

15 COL DUNN: Again, I'm not a detector or spectra

16 kind of guy. I'm a medical doctor who looks at

casualties,

17 and it's really tough for me to speculate in any kind of

18 useful manner about that.

19 The one episode that I touched on in detail

where

20 we saw the Fox spectra on videotape up here just before I

21 spoke, I'm quite comfortable in saying that all of that

22 compatible with an incidental mustard exposure and

23 unfortunately we don't have the analytical confirmation

24 make that 100 percent.

25 But I think it's probably pretty critical for

114

1 to stick to the facts and what I actually know to be the

2 case.

3 MR. TURNER: In your statement, you suggest

that

4 the soldier might not have noticed a later exposure to

one

5 of many highly corrosives. Is there any factual basis

for

6 that statement, or is that just a suggestion of another

7 scenario that might have happened?

8 COL DUNN: Faced with the facts as we have

them,a

9 clinical setting to really support sulphur mustard

exposure,

10 and not having the analytical confirmation later on, if

the

11 question is could anything else have possibly done this,

the

12 answer would have to be, yep, there are any number of skin

13 injury corrosive compounds, strong acids, strong alkali --

14 MR. TURNER: No, no. The question is: Was

there

15 any evidence that that actually happened?

16 COL DUNN: No.

17 MR. TURNER: Okay.

18 COL DUNN: No.

19 MR. TURNER: You trained medical personnel that

20 were stationed at Al Jubail?

21 COL DUNN: Yes.

22 MR. TURNER: Did any reports of possible

chemical

23 or biological incidents come to you up through the chain

24 command from Al Jubail?

25 COL DUNN: Only indirectly, and I'll describe

that

115

1 for you.

2 MR. TURNER: Would you please?

3 COL DUNN: We had a team with the Marine

4 Expeditionary Force and forward of Al Jubail on the way

5 going into Kuwait, we had a team set up with one of

the

6 Marine Corps clearing companies, Navy medical

clearing

7 company -- I believe the tactical unit that it supported

was

8 the 2nd Marine Division -- and we had an initial report

that

9 an operating room had to be cleared out because of a

10 positive reading for mustard on a chemical agent monitor,

11 CAM.

12 We learned that one of my guys, Major Bob Gunn,

13 occupational health physician who was on the scene there,

14 took a look at that situation and learned that what had

set

15 off that CAM was a volatile anesthetic called

16 methoxyflurane. And methoxyflurane will, in fact, cause

the

17 CAM to alarm in that mode.

18 So, again I think there was some negative value

19 having our expert teams in the area, instead of having a

20 closed-down operating room and the inability to take care

21 casualties, they were very quickly able to get that

22 operating room back in business and continue the mission.

23 To my knowledge, that was the one episode of

24 concern that came to medical attention from that sector of

25 operation, and it's possible that considering the

evacuation

116

1 chain, some of those Marines might have been moved onward

2 back to Fleet 5 at Al Jubail.

3 MR. TURNER: Aside from this one incident where

4 the soldier was exploring the bunker, are you aware of any

5 other acute exposure or clinical presentation of either

6 nerve or mustard agent that occurred?

7 COL DUNN: I am not.

8 MS. GWIN: We have a history from the Marine

Corps

9 that cites blistering on exposed arms of two crewmen. Was

10 that reported to you during the war?

11 COL DUNN: It was not.

12 MS. GWIN: Have you been involved in any attempt

13 to follow up on that?

14 COL DUNN: No.

15 MR. TURNER: If I understood your testimony

fully,

16 you did not train people to recognize subclinical

exposures

17 to either mustard or nerve agents; is that correct?

18 COL DUNN: Right. Just to put that as plainly

19 possible, we taught a clinical course; therefore

subclinical

20 phenomena would have been off our scope.

21 MS. KNOX: How about nonlethal viral agents?

22 COL DUNN: We sure had our share of those in-

23 theater. In terms of --

24 MS. KNOX: But were you --

25 COL DUNN: -- you know, natural infection.

117

1 MS. KNOX: Right. The people that went

through

2 your class, did they get any education concerning

those,

3 what to look for?

4 COL DUNN: We concentrated on BOT and

anthrax,

5 both bacterial agents. And in fact, and perhaps

Lieutenant

6 Colonel Martin can speak to this in more depth. The

intel

7 we had concerning BW holdings primarily concentrated on

BOT

8 and anthrax and what I know of later United Nations

9 confirmatory efforts in the Gulf confirmed that those two

10 agents were the key BW holdings. So I think we were on

11 target there.

12 MR. CROSS: Colonel, in light of some of the

13 lessons learned in Desert Storm, what are we doing in the

14 military for future conflicts in terms of chemical and

15 biological weapons? You know, are we developing new

16 equipment, has the training gotten more intense, or

what's

17 your feeling on that subject?

18 COL DUNN: Let me split that into two different

19 things. First, personal feelings and second what I'm

right

20 now officially responsible for and what I have been

21 responsible for in the recent past.

22 Personal feeling, chemical defense has become

one

23 of my pet rocks. Therefore, you can expect me to be a

24 strong advocate and proponent of as much training and

25 readiness in medical defense against CW as we can have.

118

1 If you were to talk to my friend, Colonel Ken

2 Farmer, who is the command surgeon of U.S. European

Command

3 today supporting the deployment in Bosnia, he would

probably

4 be equally spun up about how to deal with land mines and

5 mine casualties. So I think a lot of what your area of

6 emphasis is is on what you perceive the immediate threat

and

7 problem is.

8 Following the conflict, and following a couple

9 other assignments, I was commander of our hospital at Fort

10 Polk, Louisiana for two years, from 1993 to 1995. You may

11 recall that there was a southern movement of Iraqi armored

12 forces, I believe, in November or December of 1994 and

from

13 Fort Polk we sent and air defense artillery brigade to

14 Kuwait on very split-second short notice.

15 I had fifty providers on the staff at my

hospital,

16 and in sorting out who was going to go to Kuwait that

night

17 with the air defense artillery brigade I found out in

about

18 thirty minutes that I had eight M2C3 graduates, and you

can

19 bet that everybody who went to medically support that

20 brigade was an M2C3 graduate.

21 Stepping back out of those personal experiences

22 into my current official capacity working for Assistant

23 Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, I do have to

24 with supporting our assessments of readiness to do all

25 aspects of combat casualty care. We're working very

closely

119

1 with the Department of Defense Inspector General and with

2 the services on ensuring that we always have a sufficient

3 number of deployable physicians and medical personnel

whose

4 credentialing and training is fully up to speed against

the

5 spectrum of threats that we're potentially going to run

6 into.

7 So, yes, we've got things ongoing, especially

8 plans and credentialing mechanisms to say that unless

you're

9 up to speed, Doc, on your chemical casualty care and on

your

10 ability to do ATLS and ACLS, both a couple of good things

11 for people to do in a conflict, you're not going to get

your

12 specialty pay, or you're not going to get your proficiency

13 pay.

14 So, there are some very good, very strong

ongoing

15 efforts to ensure that we maintain a decent level of

16 readiness.

17 MS. GWIN: You said that protection against

18 chemical warfare was your pet rock. Do you have a

colleague

19 who's focused on biological warfare in the same way?

20 COL DUNN: Fortunately I have a number of

21 colleagues, and again I'm not the only guy who's holding

the

22 chemical pet rock. I think one real benefit of, if

there's

23 any benefit to what we went through in 1990 and 1991 is

that

24 we're no longer just one deep. There's five or a half

dozen

25 people who are really committed at a senior level to

120

1 ensuring that we have good protection against both chem

and

2 bio.

3 MS. GWIN: Is it primarily one service?

4 COL DUNN: This is primarily to the Army, the

Navy

5 and the Air Force and also within the medical research and

6 material command of the Army which has the lead

laboratories

7 both for chemical and biological defense.

8 MR. BROWN: Colonel Dunn, you've described this

9 very elaborate and well-put-together surveillance, medical

10 surveillance system that was in the Gulf looking for the

11 possibility of at least chemical attack and a couple of

12 biologicals, I guess, as well.

13 We've heard from several witnesses this morning,

14 we've heard in other hearings that we've had, our

committee

15 has heard about the Al Jubail incident, and I'm wondering

16 you could tell us something about how that surveillance

17 system, the system that you described that was looking for

18 health effects, any health effects that may have occurred,

19 how that system worked in that particular instance, if it

20 picked up anything.

21 COL DUNN: Are you asking how did I find out

about

22 the individuals who --

23 MR. BROWN: No. I'm wondering if that

24 surveillance system that was in place, that you described,

25 detected -- how it interacted with that incident. Were

121

1 incidences of health effects or exposure effects detected

2 this surveillance system from that incident, for instance?

3 COL DUNN: We were looking and I can -- I can

4 have a fair amount of confidence that there was nothing

5 inhibiting any of our people in that network from passing

6 information. To say that we just didn't see the kind of

7 intentional battlefield use that we were trained to

8 recognize would suggest to me that I don't think it

9 happened.

10 Again, if you'll reflect on what young doctors

and

11 nurses, at least half of them from our reserve components,

12 are keyed in on doing and reporting and looking for, it's

13 pretty tough for me to imagine any one of them

encountering

14 an episode like this and not reporting it or keeping it to

15 themselves. There is just no motive that I can imagine

for

16 someone to not report or to conceal that kind of a thing.

17 Chains of command, same thing. There was the

18 strongest motivation on the part of commanders and command

19 surgeons to get the information up the chain and to get it

20 out. And again, the one time that it happened, I was

21 reasonably close to the scene, and the system worked the

way

22 it should have.

23 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: Sir, this is a follow-up. At

24 Jubail there were no reported health symptoms, the

25 physicians reported no symptoms from the persons who we've

122

1 had telling us --

2 COL DUNN: Yeah.

3 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: Okay.

4 COL DUNN: Talking later on to some of the folks

5 who were at Al Jubail, many of them assigned in peacetime

6 Portsmouth Naval Hospital in the Tidewater area, their key

7 concerns had to do with some refineries and domestic

8 chemical plants in the area, and with inhalation problems

9 from those kinds of things.

10 And that was really the focus of their

attention.

11 They were expecting and looking for exposures to chemical

12 warfare agents, and they just didn't see them. And they

13 were concentrating mostly on, gee, what was that stuff in

14 the plants.

15 MS. KNOX: Colonel Dunn --

16 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: But then again --

17 MS. KNOX: Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead.

18 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: Just then, again, when you're

19 talking about the attacks of chemical warfare agents,

we're

20 talking about large concentrations that would be --

21 COL DUNN: Battlefield use.

22 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: -- casualties, battlefield

use?

23 COL DUNN: Right, right.

24 MS. KNOX: Would you say that you've maintained

25 good health since you've come back from the Gulf War?

123

1 COL DUNN: Let's see. I've gotten older. Yes,

2 I'm fortunate, I've maintained good health.

3 MS. KNOX: Did you take the anthrax, botulinum

4 the PV tablets?

5 COL DUNN: All three.

6 MS. KNOX: All three.

7 COL DUNN: Again, my job was to go with my

people

8 where we were expecting to get slime, so that it was a

9 curious thing. We would show up at a unit and people

would

10 know who we were and they'd be real happy to see us until

11 told them why we were there. And, yes, I took all three.

12 I took 20 doses of pyridostigmine over a period

13 about six days; I had two doses of BOT and two doses of

14 anthrax.

15 MR. CROSS: In your current condition --

condition

16 -- in your current position do you see an alarmingly high

17 number of Gulf War veterans showing up at Army clinics

18 nationwide, or does the number fall in the realm of, you

19 know, what you'd anticipate after a major conflict?

20 COL DUNN: Sir, I think the right individual to

21 answer that query would be Colonel Koenigsberg whose team

22 specifically keyed to looking at those numbers and

assessing

23 data like that.

24 Again, going back to my personal experience for

25 two years quite recently as a hospital commander at Fort

124

1 Polk, Louisiana, we served an area of approximately 40,000

2 beneficiaries. I looked up the number of folks that we

3 evaluated in the CCEP, and during my command tour we

4 evaluated about 140 individuals out of that service area.

5 don't know the ends or the denominators or how many

Persian

6 Gulf veterans that specifically addresses. Colonel

7 Koenigsberg would be much better prepared to give you hard

8 numbers.

9 MR. CROSS: Any further questions from the

panel?

10 (No response.)

11 MR. CROSS: All right. Colonel Dunn, thank you

12 very much for your testimony.

13 COL DUNN: Thank you, sir.

14 MR. CROSS: What I'd like to do right now is, to

15 maintain a schedule I'd like to take a lunch break, and at

16 1:15 p.m. we'll be back, convene. Colonel Koenigsberg and

17 Lieutenant Colonel Martin will be here.

18 Thank you very much.

19 (The lunch recess was taken.)

125

1 A F T E R N O O N S E S S I O N

2 MR. CROSS: I'd like to call this meeting back

3 session.

4 We have in front of us here two individuals. We

5 have Colonel Edward Koenigsberg, M.D., United States Air

6 Force, and Lieutenant Colonel James Martin, Persian Gulf

7 Investigation Team, Department of Defense.

8 Welcome, gentlemen.

9 COL KOENIGSBERG: Good afternoon. As stated, I

10 Colonel Koenigsberg, an Air Force Medical Corps officer,

and

11 I am the director of the Persian Gulf Veterans Illness

12 Investigation Team that functions under the direction of

the

13 Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs.

14 Your Committee requested we discuss efforts of

our

15 investigation team to explore the possibility that U.S.

16 troops in the Persian Gulf were exposed to chemical and

17 biologic warfare weapons.

18 Before discussing the issue I would like to

19 reiterate two points of information that were provided in

20 last testimony to the committee.

21 First, the investigation team was established by

22 the Deputy Secretary of Defense for the purpose of taking

23 in-depth look at all possible causes of illnesses seen in

24 the veterans of the war. No restrictions were placed on

the

25 investigation.

126

1 As part of our efforts, possible chemical and

2 biologic warfare exposure has been only one area of

3 investigation. We are also looking at immunizations,

4 prophylactic medications, endemic infections, pesticides,

5 contaminated water, propellants in missiles, hydrocarbon

6 fuels, chemicals used in and on tents and clothing, oil

well

7 fires and depleted uranium.

8 We are also examining autopsy reports, mortality

9 rates and veterinarian reports on dead animals as well as

10 numerous incidents and theories of causes that have been

11 proposed by the veterans and investigative experts.

12 The second point I would like to make is that

our

13 team is made of joint service representatives with

expertise

14 in medicine, military operations, intelligence, and

military

15 investigation.

16 In our efforts to evaluate and examine the

17 possibility the troops were exposed to chemical and

biologic

18 warfare weapons we have reviewed and investigated

incidents

19 reported to the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and

20 Urban Affairs, the House Veterans Affairs Committee, and

the

21 House Subcommittee on Human Resources and

Intergovernmental

22 Relations. We have investigated incidents reported to

your

23 committee at the various hearings, incidents from the toll-

24 free incident reporting telephone line, findings of the

U.N.

25 inspection teams, and incidents from the Marine Corps

127

1 history.

2 We have reviewed previous findings of the

3 Defensive Science Board and the Institute of Medicine. We

4 have sent people to interview reserve units with high

levels

5 of reported illnesses, had telephone calls and personal

6 interviews with veterans and leaders of veterans groups,

and

7 met with physicians treating veterans. We have met with

the

8 senior member of the Reigle Committee Staff who will

report

9 later on today, and with many individuals having specific

10 theories on chemical and biologic warfare exposure.

11 We have consulted with experts on chemical and

12 biologic warfare in the civilian sector, the intelligence

13 community, the military research community, and various

14 laboratories which evaluated materials sent back from

the

15 Gulf War.

16 We have met with and talked to military

experts

17 from other countries and have consulted with the

Central

18 Intelligence Agency, the Centers for Disease Control

and

19 Prevention, the Office of the Assistant Secretary of

Defense

20 for Atomic Energy, and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

21 One of our investigators will be leaving shortly to

consult

22 with experts in the Kuwait area.

23 We are also looking at reports of individuals

24 treated in military clinics and hospitals during the war,

25 all the autopsy reports of individuals who died during the

128

1 war, and reports of any unusual health problems in Iraqi

2 citizens. We are examining a large volume of field

reports,

3 logs and message traffic, both classified and

unclassified,

4 which are currently being consolidated and reviewed by the

5 services, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Joint Staff

6 and the Central Command.

7 As unclassified copies of this data are being

8 placed on the Department of Defense's Gulflink Home Page

9 the Internet, it is important to keep in mind that many

10 entries are based on unsubstantiated reports of possible

CBW

11 or related incidents which appeared during the chaotic

12 atmosphere of war. It is necessary that our team do much

13 more research before a statement can be accepted as

factual.

14 In the process, we make use of unit locator data

15 from the Joint Environmental Support Group at Fort

Belvoir,

16 personnel data from the Defense Manpower Data Center in

17 California, health data from the Comprehensive Clinical

18 Evaluation Program, and the VA Registry, other entries

19 the unit logs, and reports of unit investigations into

the

20 original log entry.

21 We are working with experts to develop models

22 which would give a more comprehensive view of possible

23 dispersion of material as a result of bombing or

destruction

24 of Iraqi research production or weapon storage sites. We

25 have also provided data for the geographic information

129

1 system being developed by the Army at the Center for

Health

2 Promotion and Preventive Medicine and have participated in

3 the evaluation of a SCUD missile report that was presented

4 to the Presidential Advisory Committee by one of the

5 veterans.

6 It is probably fair to state that at no time in

7 the history of the United States military were we more

aware

8 of the possibility of a chemical and biologic warfare

threat

9 than in the Persian Gulf War. Prior to deployment there

10 were extensive consultations within the government and

with

11 civilian experts to discuss protective measures and

12 detection procedures. We are examining the

documentations

13 of these meetings.

14 During the deployment, coalition forces made

15 serious threats of retaliation if they were to find

any

16 evidence of CBW used by Iraq. To this end, teams were

17 established at multiple command levels to look into

and

18 document any suspected incident of CBW exposure. We

are

19 reviewing reports from these teams, and have also had

20 personal contact with individuals responsible for

evaluating

21 suspected incidents.

22 During the war, samples of suspected material

were

23 collected and copies of tapes were made of the findings by

24 Fox Chemical Detection Vehicles. Much of this material

was

25 sent back to the U.S. for evaluation by CBW experts. We

130

1 have contacted the laboratories that did this work and

2 reviewed their reports.

3 We have also looked at satellite imagery,

weather

4 reports and documentation of SCUD and Patriot Missile

5 firings. In essence we are reviewing a massive amount of

6 documentation that was prepared due to the very real

threat

7 that CBW weapons could have been used against our troops.

8 As we complete our individual investigations,

the

9 results will be shared with the public on Gulflink. If we

10 are fortunate enough to make a real breakthrough on this

11 issue, the Secretary of Defense may wish to personally

12 release this information himself.

13 I would now like to ask Lieutenant Colonel

Jimmy

14 Martin from the investigation team to address some of

the

15 specific details that your staff requested we cover.

16 Lieutenant Colonel Martin is an Army Chemical

17 Operations Officer, and was deployed to the Gulf during

the

18 post-Desert Storm period.

19 LTC MARTIN: Good afternoon, and thank you for

the

20 opportunity to testify before this committee.

21 As previously stated, I am a United States Army

22 Chemical Operations Officer assigned to the Department of

23 Defense Persian Gulf War Veterans Illnesses Investigation

24 Team.

25 As an Army chemical officer I have been assigned

131

1 to positions where I have been the primary staff officer

2 advising unit commanders at various levels on matters

3 concerning nuclear, biological and chemical operations.

4 As a major in June of 1991 I was assigned as the

5 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment's chemical officer and

6 deployed with this unit to Kuwait as a part of the

7 stabilizing force sent immediately after Desert Storm

forces

8 redeployed. In this capacity, I also advised the

regimental

9 commander on how to best employ the regimental's chemical

10 troop which is a company-sized unit responsible for

11 providing battlefield smoke, chemical decontamination and

12 chemical reconnaissance.

13 This latter responsibility involved the

deployment

14 of a platoon of six Fox reconnaissance vehicles and crews.

15 These experiences have helped me understand some of the

16 complexities of the issues being investigated.

17 Our investigative efforts concerning potential

18 chemical and biological agent exposure are focused on two

19 broad but distinct areas. The first area concerns the

20 deliberate Iraqi employment of chemical or biological

agents

21 in offensive or defensive operations. The second concerns

22 possible low-level exposure resulting from the incidental

23 release of chemical agents from destroyed chemical

munition

24 production storage facilities by the air war campaign or

25 local demolition operations.

132

1 Before discussing each of these broad areas, I

2 would like to convey the urgency and importance the threat

3 of Iraqi CBW use placed on all levels of Department of

4 Defense in the National Command Authority in 1990-'91.

5 Prior to and during Operation Desert Shield-Desert Storm,

6 Department of Defense and the entire intelligence

community

7 assessed Iraq to have chemical and biological

capabilities,

8 and believed there was a real possibility that Iraq would

9 use these weapons.

10 Deploying units conducted extensive individual

and

11 collective NBC training to prepare for this contingency.

12 Military commanders as well as intelligence and chemical

13 staff officers from the lowest unit level through CentCom

14 were very aware of this threat, and to use an Army term,

15 were leaning forward in the foxhole to gather any

16 information or evidence of Iraqi intentions or actual use

17 these weapons.

18 A special element of medical specialists was

19 presented in-theater to examine and confirm possible

20 chemical casualties. The Joint Captured Material

21 Exploitation Center, JCMEC, the Joint Service Unit, which

22 also included coalition members, other coalition members,

23 was activated during the war to collect captured material

24 for intelligence exploitation. The primary mission for

the

25 JCMEC was to collect air and soil samples for possible

133

1 chemical and biological contamination.

2 From the first week of January through the end

3 March 1991 over 1,000 samples were analyzed. If Saddam

4 Hussein employed chemical or biological agents

against

5 coalition forces, we were ready to quickly verify

and

6 forward the evidence so that an appropriate political and

7 military response could be made. It was a matter of

extreme

8 urgency and importance.

9 Although Iraq had the capability to use weapons

10 mass destruction, to date we have found no evidence that

11 used these weapons. Even though Iraqi ballistic missiles

12 were launched against targets in both Saudi Arabia and

13 Israel, our investigation to date has shown no evidence

that

14 these missile attacks included chemical or biological

15 warheads. Each SCUD employed against Israel and Saudi

16 Arabia was tracked from launch to impact or interception

17 air defense systems. Each known impact was investigated

and

18 examined, and in each case there was no evidence of

chemical

19 and biological agent contamination.

20 There is also no evidence to date that tactical

21 ammunition containing chemical agents was ever issued to

22 Iraqi artillery units from storage bunker facilities, and

23 there's no evidence that chemical or biological agents

were

24 employed covertly.

25 Finally, after reviewing currently-available

134

1 medical records and reports, with the exception of one

2 possible blister agent exposure, we have seen no chemical

3 agent-related casualties or deaths.

4 The possibility of a unit's exposure to low-

level

5 chemical agent concentrations is a much more difficult

6 problem to investigate and make conclusions. U.S.

chemical

7 agent alarms did not detect levels below those that would

8 produce those that would produce early symptoms in

troops.

9 Individuals exposed to low levels of chemical agents

would

10 not exhibit acute chemical agent symptoms which could be

11 reported. When chemical agent alarms did not sound, more

12 sensitive detectors, such as the M256 chemical agent

13 detection kits would not have been used to identify the

14 presence of a chemical agent.

15 There was a significant effort by Department of

16 Defense planners prior to Operation Desert Storm to

examine

17 the chemical agent exposure risk to coalition forces that

18 might result from coalition bombing. This involved

19 extensive downwind hazard modeling and a consideration of

20 spectrum of specialized weapons which could be employed

21 bunker destruction. Modeling efforts at that time

indicated

22 little or no risk of any chemical exposure.

23 Our investigation team is working with the

Central

24 Intelligence Agency to examine new enhanced modeling

efforts

25 which include corrections for the effect of weather using

135

1 recorded weather patterns and actual weather data. The

2 investigation team is also consolidating reports, all

3 available chemical agent alarms from unit logs, the

incident

4 reporting hotline, eyewitness accounts and other reported

5 detections.

6 With this information, we plan to conduct a time-

7 distance analysis by plotting alarm detections where and

8 when they occurred to determine if there were any patterns

9 indicating a potential cloud movement.

10 We are continuing to investigate reports of

11 detections from 256 kits, many of which are not

documented

12 but have been reported by veterans.

13 Our investigation into low-level chemical

agent

14 exposure remains open and will continue for some time.

15 Currently, our investigation team will continue to

16 research on the clinical and health-related aspects of

low-

17 level chemical agent exposure.

18 As revealed by recent Iraqi declarations, Iraq

19 also had an advanced biological warfare program including

20 robust biological agent research, development and

21 weaponization efforts. To date, we have found no

evidence

22 that biological agents were used against U.S. forces.

23 Sampling teams collected over 1,000 air samples, all of

24 which were negative for known biological agents.

25 Although there were some limitations in our

136

1 biological defense during the Gulf War, especially in real-

2 time detection capability, many efforts initiated during

the

3 war, including this sampling program and the BW training

4 given to medical and other personnel support this

5 assessment. We will, of course, continue to investigate

6 information of potential relevance to this issue.

7 At this point I will present our findings on two

8 well-documented and highly visible incidents as requested

9 your staff. The first incident concerns the possible

10 blister agent exposure of a soldier with the 3rd Armored

11 Division on the 1st of March 1991. On this day this

12 individual was exploring bunkers in southeastern Iraq near

13 the border of northern Kuwait.

14 According to the soldier's account, he entered

15 underground bunker near a location previously occupied by

16 Iraqi artillery unit. The bunker had a tight entrance and

17 passageway. He observed crates and loose artillery

18 projectiles in disarray. As he proceeded he noticed a

skull

19 and crossbones symbol on one or more crates, became

alarmed

20 and immediately left the bunker.

21 As he was moving through the passageway, he

rubbed

22 against the walls whereupon his Nomex tank and coveralls

and

23 a ballistic protective vest were soiled. About eight

hours

24 later he began to feel pain on the skin of his upper left

25 arm. This continued until the following day when two

medics

137

1 at the unit aid station, both trained in the

identification

2 and handling of chemical casualties, suspected that he

hada

3 mild contact with a blister agent. This clinical

diagnosis

4 was later confirmed by two physicians, one of whom was

5 Colonel Michael A. Dunn, then the commander of Medical

6 Research Institute for Chemical Defense, and part of

the

7 medical staff present to verify chemical agent

exposure

8 casualties.

9 The mass spectrometer from a Fox NBC vehicle

10 detected traces of H-mustard agent at the bunker site and

11 the soldier's clothing. Laboratory analysis of the

12 soldier's protective vest and Nomex coveralls, conducted

13 the Edgewood Research Development and Engineering Center

14 showed no evidence of chemical agents; however the lab

15 analysis aren't total indicative because the samples may

not

16 have been handled properly, and there was a significant

time

17 lag from when the incident occurred to the actual testing

18 the samples.

19 The soldier's urine sample was also negative for

20 elevated levels of thiodiglycol, a breakdown product and

21 indication of H-mustard exposure. These results, however,

22 do not totally exclude a possible mild exposure to a

mustard

23 agent since the area of contact was so small.

24 At this point we feel that this exposure was

25 probably the result of an incidental contact with a

blister

138

1 agent from a contaminated bunker, and did not result from

2 more widespread exposure.

3 The second incident that we were asked to

address

4 was the events that occurred at the Port of Jubail on

19/20

5 January 1991 specifically involving the Naval Mobile

6 Construction Battalion 24, a Navy Seabee unit. This

7 incident constitutes a large portion of the

eyewitness

8 testimony presented in Senator Reigle's May 1994

report

9 concerning the health consequences of the Persian Gulf

War.

10 It has also been a subject of much speculation as to

whether

11 this incident involved an Iraqi chemical agent attack.

12 To fully understand what occurred during

this

13 period, the investigation team thoroughly examined

the

14 unit's command operational logs and unit medical

records.

15 Additionally, we interviewed unit personnel to include

16 leaders, NBC detection monitoring team personnel and

17 numerous other unit members, some of whom provided

testimony

18 in Senator Reigle's report.

19 From the unit command post, air detachment and

20 other operational logs during the period 19 through 21

21 January, it is evident that the unit went to general

22 quarters or alert status twice; once early morning on 19

23 January 1991, and once late night or early morning on

the

24 20th/21st of January 1991. Distinctive events occurred

25 each alert.

139

1 On the morning of 19 January 1991 there was a

2 reference to alert sirens, a loud noise at Camp 13

followed

3 by a documented M256 kit test with negative results

4 conducted by the command bunker NBC team. The majority of

5 witnesses in the Reigle report refer to this event.

6 During the second alert there was a log

reference

7 to two explosions southeast of camp, but no record of any

8 M256 kit test being conducted. The time of the second

event

9 corresponds approximately to the time a SCUD launched

10 towards Daharan, and was most likely intercepted by a

11 Patriot Missile at very high altitude. The Port of Jubail

12 was on this missile's flight path.

13 Eyewitness accounts are generally inconsistent

and

14 combine details of each of these distinct events, making

15 difficult to determine what actually occurred. Some

16 eyewitnesses described a fireball and illuminated sky.

17 Others described a falling mist and symptoms exhibited

18 including running noses, numbness and burning sensations

19 their skin. One unit member smelled an overpowering odor

20 like ammonia, while others interviewed didn't recall any

21 significant odor or smell.

22 Some unit members state they were unprotected

and

23 exhibited no symptoms. Members of the unit's NBC team

24 stationed at the command bunker confirmed the negative

25 readings of the M256 kit tests conducted at several

140

1 different locations. The complaints reported by some

2 observers are not consistent with nerve and mustard agent

3 exposure symptoms.

4 Also, a careful review of the unit medical

records

5 indicate there was no significant increase in the number

6 Camp 13 and air detachment personnel reporting for clinic

7 visits, and no evidence of chemical agent physical

8 complaints or the type of symptoms described by the

9 witnesses.

10 There was, however, an unusual increase in the

11 number of personnel requiring medical attention some two

12 months later on the 19th of March 1991 when a

significant

13 number of unit personnel complained of symptoms

associated

14 with noxious fumes exposure and other possible unknown

15 exposures. This increase is associated with the release

16 fumes from reactivation of a nearby Saudi fertilizer

factory

17 which may have also caused unit personnel T-shirts to turn

18 purple at that time.

19 It is our current opinion that there was an

20 explosion or explosions, and some unit members exhibited

21 various acute symptoms. But these symptoms were not

22 consistent with those associated with a chemical agent

23 exposure. We will continue to investigate this incident

24 order to ascertain the nature and source of the

contaminant

25 that affected this group of personnel.

141

1 I'd like to conclude by saying all of these and

2 many other investigative issues remain open and require

3 additional research. Investigating reports of possible

4 chemical and biological agent exposure will continue as

5 important effort, but as Colonel Koenigsberg has

previously

6 stated, this is only one of many efforts our

investigation

7 team is pursuing.

8 Thank you again for this opportunity to testify

9 before the committee.

10 MR. CROSS: Questions from the panel?

11 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: I have one in particular

about,

12 you mentioned that current research is being conducted to

13 determine some of the effects of low-level exposure to

14 chemicals. Is that happening?

15 COL KOENIGSBERG: No, we didn't really comment

16 that. What we did say is that, you know, that we don't

have

17 a good handle on low-level exposure. There is research

that

18 we're aware of that's going on on the effects of low-

level.

19 There's very little that's been reported in the

literature.

20 We did do literature searches for work on low-level

exposure

21 and delayed neurotoxicity exposure.

22 But what we have been able to find is that in

the

23 cases that are mentioned it generally shows that someone

has

24 an acute reaction and then goes on to some type of a low

25 level. There is no good documentation that would fit in

142

1 this, and if you look at the OSHA standards and people

that

2 work around this, it isn't really too applicable to this.

3 So we have not been able to find a lot of good data to

look

4 at.

5 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: Is there any kind of research

6 being done, though, or conducted, let's say at Aberdeen

7 at the other fort that you mentioned in Virginia, I can't

8 or Washington, regarding any type of low-level exposure --

9 COL KOENIGSBERG: Not that we know of.

10 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: -- from --

11 MS. GWIN: DOD is conducting no low-level --

12 COL KOENIGSBERG: I --

13 MS. GWIN: -- exposure research?

14 COL KOENIGSBERG: There's none that we know of

15 ourselves. There may be something out there, but I know

16 nothing that's being done at this point.

17 MR. RIOS: Colonel Koenigsberg, based on your

18 investigation, is it possible that the United States could

19 have laid out a strategy, a bombing strategy that would

not

20 have resulted in collateral exposure of chemical and

21 biological agents in Iraq?

22 COL KOENIGSBERG: I'm a physician, I would not

23 able to answer that question on bombing strategy. I can

24 tell you that there were a lot of, there was a lot of

25 modeling done before the bombing was done. There was a

lot

143

1 of discussion before the bombing was done between people

2 that know chemical and biologic. I think they used what

3 they thought was the right strategy. I wouldn't be able

4 comment on that.

5 MR. RIOS: But I thought you said you conducted

6 investigation. Are you telling us that your investigation

7 did not include a review of the bombing strategy?

8 COL KOENIGSBERG: We have looked peripherally at

9 the bombing strategy. We will look into the bombing

10 strategy further.

11 The major part that we have tried to look at is

12 the effects of the bombing, not so much as to what the

13 strategy was, but what happened after the bombing.

14 MR. RIOS: So in other words, you didn't check

15 see, for example, where Iraq would have stored their

16 chemical and biological agents, and whether or not it

would

17 have been possible to conduct any considerable bombing in

18 Iraq without exposing some of those agents?

19 COL KOENIGSBERG: We have looked at where the

20 storage sites were. I cannot comment further than that.

21 MR. RIOS: You have looked at where the storage

22 sites were?

23 COL KOENIGSBERG: Of what is known, yes, we

have.

24 MR. RIOS: Were they -- were they segregated

from

25 other -- I mean, were they in a certain area, or were

they

144

1 scattered, or were they hidden within other military

2 targets? What can you tell us about where they were

stored?

3 COL KOENIGSBERG: There was an extensive network

4 of facilities that were available, some of which even

after

5 the U.N. findings we're not sure which sites were devoted

6 a chemical-biologic war standard munition weapons. I

think

7 that that has been a very difficult question to answer

from

8 the very beginning of this.

9 We do know, and the U.N. has already commented

10 some sites that they know of where they believe chemical

11 and/or biologic agents were stored. We have looked at the

12 bombing of these particular sites. We have looked at the

13 weather conditions and the modeling that has been done on

14 these. We have looked at the, are beginning to look at

the

15 medical records of people that were in areas that could

have

16 been at all exposed to these sites, the bombing of the

17 sites.

18 We're looking -- our investigation is geared

19 towards incidents particularly, and the fact that

something

20 happened. And so if a site was hit and it had a chemical

21 biologic weapon, we would expect some kind of a reaction

22 from that, and we're looking to see if we can find at this

23 point, some reaction that might have occurred from the

24 bombing of any of those particular sites.

25 LTC MARTIN: Yeah, I'd just like to add that

there

145

1 are certain bunkers with certain types of characteristics

2 which were associated with the storage of chemical

3 munitions. Through the intelligence process they located

4 these and that's how they identified certain facilities in

5 which to hit.

6 DR. CUSTIS: So, am I to understand that

you're

7 approaching the problem with the presumption that you

may

8 have hit some areas that had chemical and biological

agents,

9 and whether or not -- you're approaching it to see if

there

10 were any effects of that; is that correct?

11 LTC MARTIN: That's correct, yes.

12 COL KOENIGSBERG: Yeah, we're taking -- as an

13 investigation team, we try and take the same kind of

14 approach that a criminal investigation team was. We're

15 going to go at it from the idea that if there was

something

16 there, then we're going to look for a result. And that's

17 what we are doing.

18 MR. TURNER: I think this is probably best

19 directed to Colonel Martin and you, too, Colonel

20 Koenigsberg, on this one.

21 Do you have any basis for questioning Dr.

Dunn's

22 diagnosis and assessment that the soldier that was in the

23 bunker was exposed to mustard?

24 COL KOENIGSBERG: No.

25 LTC MARTIN: No.

146

1 MR. TURNER; So we can agree that that's a

mustard

2 exposure, can't we, here today?

3 COL KOENIGSBERG: We completely buy what his

final

4 statement was, yes.

5 MR. TURNER: Colonel Martin, what happened at Al

6 Jubail?

7 LTC MARTIN: Well, as I described in my

testimony

8 there were the two events. The first event occurred about

9 3:30 in the morning on the 19th. It was an -- obviously

10 there were certain events and circumstances that occurred

11 that caused the command element to check to see if there

was

12 chemical agents present. There were none.

13 And the second event occurred midnight of the

14 following day, which could have been an interception of a

15 Patriot missile. It tends to correspond to that time.

16 I don't know really what happened. I don't know

17 what they were exposed to. I believe that there was

18 something, but I don't know what it was.

19 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: Following back on that

20 particular question, there were not chemicals detected,

but

21 that's using the equipment that you had available to

detect

22 the agents?

23 LTC MARTIN: That's correct. That was the 256

24 kit.

25 MR. TURNER: I understand that the nuclear,

147

1 biological and chemical officer for the Seabees has

reported

2 that he had positive 256 kit detection for that second

3 incident. Are you aware of that?

4 LTC MARTIN: I believe there's reference to that

5 in testimony in the Reigle report. It was not recorded in

6 either of the logs.

7 MR. TURNER: So, it's not a logged fact, but

there

8 is testimony to that effect?

9 LTC MARTIN: Yes.

10 MR. TURNER: Are you going to pursue that

11 testimony and interview that officer?

12 LTC MARTIN: Yes. I have not yet, but I

will.

13 MR. TURNER: You plan to do that?

14 LTC MARTIN: Yes.

15 MR. TURNER: So there was a SCUD launch on

the

16 20th of January that coincides with this incident?

17 LTC MARTIN: Approximately the same time,

yes.

18 MR. TURNER: A SCUD carries nitric acid, it

has

19 red-fuming nitric acid as one of its propellants. Would

you

20 tell the panel a bit about what the possible effects of

21 destroying a missile with that kind of propellant on it

22 would be?

23 LTC MARTIN: Well, if a SCUD does not fly its

24 extended path, it would not burn up all of its propellant

25 its oxidizer which is the red-fuming nitric acid, so if it

148

1 was intercepted and it had not completed its path, chances

2 are if it was intercepted some of this propellant and

3 oxidizer may have been released, and the effects of red-

4 fuming nitric acid is similar to any acid exposure. It

5 would cause some burning sensations.

6 MR. TURNER: Could it cause respiratory

problems,

7 Colonel Martin?

8 LTC KOENIGSBERG: Yes, it would.

9 MR. TURNER: And I'm sorry, actually you're

better

10 to answer that one, Colonel Koenigsberg.

11 MS. TAYLOR: Would that be -- that's short-term

12 effect. Would there be any long-term effects?

13 COL KOENIGSBERG: That is a short-term as

opposed

14 to, say, a mustard agent which as you heard in this

15 morning's testimony, there is a delay of four to eight

hours

16 before you start getting symptoms from a mustard agent.

You

17 don't feel the burning on your skin, nor on a neurotoxic

18 agent do you feel it immediately.

19 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: As a follow-up, would there be

20 any possibility that after that exposure there could be

21 recurring complications, skin rashes?

22 COL KOENIGSBERG: We don't know of any. There's

23 not that much literature on the exposure to red-fuming

24 nitric acid. The stuff that's out there says that it acts

25 like any other acid. Would you get a reaction, an

immediate

149

1 burn? Yes. Once it's off the skin, theoretically you

2 shouldn't keep getting recurring rashes and things of this

3 nature from the red-fuming nitric acid.

4 MR. TURNER: Is it fair to summarize your

5 testimony as we don't know what happened at Al Jubail, but

6 something happened and we need to find out what it was?

7 LTC MARTIN: Yes. But the symptoms exhibited by

8 the personnel there are not in sync with a normal blister

9 nerve agent exposure.

10 MR. TURNER: So the symptoms are not consistent

11 with an acute clinical exposure to either nerve agent or

12 mustard agent; is that correct?

13 LTC MARTIN: That's correct.

14 COL KOENIGSBERG: And I think I'd like to point

15 out that we have talked to quite a few people in that

unit.

16 We've talked to the physician assistant who was treating

the

17 patients, who saw the people on those days following these

18 two incidents. We've talked to the commander of the unit.

19 I don't know really how much further we're going to be

able

20 to go in this particular incident to get at what caused

it.

21 I think we can say some things about what might

22 probably didn't cause it, but whatever did happen, we

don't

23 know what it was that they were exposed to, and I don't

know

24 where else can go.

25 MR. TURNER: Again, I think this question is

best

150

1 directed to Colonel Martin.

2 Colonel, were there chemical weapons south of

the

3 31st parallel in the Kuwaiti theater of operations?

4 COL MARTIN: South of the 31st parallel? Yes.

5 Inspectors found chemical munitions at a bunker complex

6 south of that in October of '91.

7 MR. TURNER: On the question of coalition

bombing

8 of various Iraqi storage sites possibly causing fallout

and

9 exposure, do you know if coalition air forces used

10 incendiaries, incendiary weapons on chemical weapons

storage

11 sites that were targeted?

12 LTC MARTIN: No, I'm not sure.

13 MR. TURNER: Can you find that out?

14 LTC MARTIN: Yes, we'll check into that.

15 MR. CROSS: Colonel Koenigsberg, this is going

16 be summed up in some report that you're going to put

17 together. When do you anticipate publishing that report?

18 COL KOENIGSBERG: The final report on this will

19 not be out for quite some time. Our intent is to put out

20 report on an incident as we finish closing out that

21 incident.

22 When I say closing out, I have to qualify that

23 because I think in most of these we won't be able -- in

many

24 of them we will not be able to come to a final conclusion.

25 There will still be a door left open that says that if new

151

1 information becomes available to us we will be able to go

2 back and relook at that particular incident.

3 There's a lot of material that's coming to us

now

4 in the declassification process. The declassification

isn't

5 the important part to us, it's the fact that all this data

6 is being put together, and that we're now getting access

7 into logs and reports that nobody else has ever had a

chance

8 to look at before.

9 And so even on this Al Jubail thing, there are

new

10 things that will come out to us, and when we will be able

11 close it out to some extent and say, well, look, we've

gone

12 as far as we can in this incident, the things we would

need

13 to do are not available to us. I mean, there's no soil

14 samples, there's nothing we can go back and get that would

15 give us that final door closure that says, no, this could

16 not have happened.

17 When we get to that point, we will publish it on

18 the Internet and it will come out at that point. And then

19 at the end of our entire investigation, there will be kind

20 of a summing up report which theoretically will go into

the

21 incidents that we've already checked out, which have

already

22 appeared on Internet, as well as any additional

information.

23 MR. CROSS: Do you have a time frame?

24 COL KOENIGSBERG: Right now we're looking at

25 probably being around doing this investigation I would

152

1 assume, until probably June of '97, because a lot of the

2 declassification efforts will not end until the end of

3 December of '96. And so at that point we should have a

full

4 amount of data that we can review and go back and see if

5 there's something we've missed.

6 MR. TURNER: Have you closed out any

7 investigation, an investigation of any incident that's

8 before you?

9 COL KOENIGSBERG: None of the incidents has been

10 closed out. We are still openly investigating every one

11 them, we're trying to get new information on it.

12 We have closed out one issue that came up. It

was

13 not an incident, but there was -- it's on Gulfnet already

14 about a theory that one individual had, and we pursued

this

15 as best we could and in that one we felt there were no

other

16 doors that needed to be opened, and we did publish that on

17 the Internet.

18 MS. KNOX: Colonel Koenigsberg, you say in your

19 testimony that as you complete each individual

investigation

20 you want to publish that on Gulflink. I'd like to give

you

21 the opportunity to discuss the memo that we received in

San

22 Antonio from the active duty soldier concerning things

that

23 may show up in the classified logs as they're

declassified,

24 things that might relate to chemical and biological

warfare.

25 Can you talk about that?

153

1 COL KOENIGSBERG: Well, I think the individual

2 that wrote that is here, and I would prefer maybe to turn

3 over to him and let him do it.

4 MR. WALLER: Thank you. Yes, I'm the author of

5 that particular memo.

6 MR. CROSS: Can you identify yourself fully?

7 MR. WALLER: I am Paul Waller, I'm the staff

8 director of Dr. White's Senior Oversight Panel looking

into

9 DOD Initiatives on Behalf of Persian Gulf Illnesses. I'm

10 sorry.

11 The memo that I wrote -- this was directed to

the

12 operation of declassification community -- it was based on

13 concerns from Dr. White specifically and from others on

his

14 panel about what was out there in the operational records.

15 And their concern was that it somehow got out onto the

16 Internet and available to the public before they had been

17 forewarned of the potential sensitivity of that

information.

18 It was not designed, nor has it in fact

precluded

19 anything from going through the process and actually being

20 posted on the Internet.

21 We gave some sort of -- I gave some examples in

22 there that I probably shouldn't have, but I did anyhow,

and

23 the idea was to provide some sort of guidance for the

24 declassifiers that are looking at what turns out to be a

25 mass of documents, some 21 million pages in total having

154

1 do with Desert Shield and Desert Storm, so as they're

going

2 through these they can hopefully make a judgement call of,

3 yes, this could appear on the front page of the Washington

4 Post, and this is something we should flag for a possible

5 look.

6 The intent was to have the investigation team

look

7 at those reports, perhaps if they're significant enough

8 prepare a summary for the policy-making community in DOD,

9 and then send a report on to be posted onto Gulflink. And

10 that is in fact what has happened in the process up to

this

11 point in time.

12 Thus far we've posted some 4,500 operational

13 information pages onto the Internet, principally from the

14 Marine Corps, the Air Force and the Joint Chiefs of

Staff.

15 Of those the declassifiers, the reviewers have identified

16 about 80 that in their judgement were in this category of

17 potential sensitive or bombshell kind of information.

The

18 investigation team, Colonel Koenigsberg and his people

have

19 looked at all of those, and none of them in their

judgement

20 warranted forwarding to Dr. White or any other official

21 the Department of Defense. In fact, most of them they

22 already knew about, already had under active

investigation.

23 So that is kind of the background of why we did

24 that particular memorandum and what has happened to it

25 since.

155

1 MS. KNOX: So have those 80 incidents already

been

2 published on the Gulflink?

3 MR. WALLER: Yes, the information has already

been

4 put out on the Gulflink, yes. The actual delay in the

5 process when they arrived at the investigation team and

when

6 they appeared on Gulflink has been averaging about three

7 four days.

8 MS. KNOX: Are there any incidents that you're

9 currently looking at that might be sensitive that you've

not

10 released yet?

11 MR. WALLER: Are there --

12 COL KOENIGSBERG: Absolutely not.

13 MR. CROSS: All right. I'd like to wrap up the

14 testimony from these gentlemen. Thank you.

15 Do you have any closing statements, gentlemen?

16 (No response.)

17 MR. CROSS: Okay. Thank you for your testimony.

18 I'd like to call up Sylvia Copeland and Rich

19 McNally. And if you'd be so kind to introduce yourself

and

20 tell us what you do.

21 MS. COPELAND: I'm Sylvia Copeland, the CIA

Focal

22 Point for Gulf War Illnesses. This --

23 MR. McNALLY: I'm --

24 MS. COPELAND: This -- I'm sorry, go ahead.

25 MR. McNALLY: I'm Rich McNally from SAIC under

156

1 contract working for Sylvia.

2 MS. COPELAND: Mr. Chairman, members of the CBW

3 panel:

4 We are pleased to appear before you this

5 afternoon. We will cover two issues in our discussion.

6 First I will present a brief overview of

CIA's

7 role in examining potential chemical and biological

agent

8 exposure. In this I will clarify the contribution of

9 intelligence to this issue, and define the scope of our

10 current study. Second, we will discuss some

preliminary

11 computer modeling.

12 First, the CIA has long followed Iraq's

chemical

13 and biological programs. Prior to the Gulf War we

assessed

14 that Iraq had significant CW and BW capability, and it

had

15 used chemical weapons in the Iran-Iraq war. The CIA is

16 currently conducting an independent review of

intelligence

17 reporting in parallel with the Persian Gulf investigative

18 team. Our study is a detailed investigation into

19 intelligence information, not troop testimony, medical

20 records or operational logs, and our conclusions are our

21 own.

22 The CIA's effort does not seek to duplicate

that

23 of DOD; however CIA analysts draw upon and examine DOD

24 information to help clarify intelligence, to obtain

leads,

25 and to ensure a thorough and comprehensive intelligence

157

1 assessment.

2 Our study focuses on two activities, research

and

3 focused investigations. Regarding research, we have

4 reviewed thousands of intelligence documents. In

addition,

5 we have documented Iraqi chemical, biological and

6 radiological warfare capabilities at the start of Desert

7 Storm. This is a tedious process, but it's necessary to

8 assure that our study is comprehensive. An investigation

9 then made into each of the key areas, use, exposure and

10 location. And specific areas are examined when possible

11 leads are found.

12 The U.N. Special Commission has been

cooperative

13 with the U.S. Government in our investigation. UNSCOM's

14 experts have held discussions with our investigators

which

15 have helped answer many of our questions. We plan to

16 conclude our study and publish an open report later this

17 year. Our object is to provide as much information as

18 possible that could help this panel and others address

these

19 issues.

20 At this time Mr. Rich McNally will discuss our

21 computer modeling effort. He is the primary government

22 contractor on modeling of chemical and biological agent

23 releases. He will use a bunker at Ad Nazirea storage

depot

24 as a source of CW agent release in his model.

25 It is important to note that this modeling

effort

158

1 uses many assumptions. The most important assumption is

2 that there were chemical weapons in a bunker that was

bombed

3 at Ad Nazirea; however we must emphasize that we currently

4 have no intelligence information on existence of such

5 weapons in the bunkers that were bombed on 17 January

1991.

6 MR. McNALLY: The presentation that I have for

you

7 today has been constructed in two phases. In the first

part

8 of the presentation I'm going to try to lay out some key

9 elements and general characteristics of the use of

modeling

10 and the assumptions, limitations and the benefits that can

11 derive thereof.

12 In the second part of the presentation I'm going

13 to walk through an example, as Sylvia stated, of a

14 theoretical attack on a bunker.

15 Slide please.

16 Very often models are used to help us integrate

17 effects when things get really complicated.

18 As it turns out, the release of a material,

19 hazardous material into the atmosphere is just one of

those

20 complicated situations that we need to look at. Many

times

21 in our modeling we're asked to look at situations where

22 there is much uncertainty on what possibly could happen

and

23 in tracking down ultimately what has happened given an

event

24 that has occurred.

25 For instance, in specific example of -- I'll

walk

159

1 through in just a second, the question for this bunker is

2 how much agent should we represent as coming out of it

when

3 we don't know from intelligence sources that there was

even

4 agent represented inside the bunker. So we adopt

techniques

5 to estimate what possible ranges of things could happen,

and

6 models allow us to estimate what those ranges and initial

7 conditions are, and look at what the consequences are of

the

8 different range of initial conditions that are out there.

9 The second issue that really gets to the heart

10 the hazardous material release question is weather, and

11 weather prediction is a very, very complicated and complex

12 phenomenon. Right now, most of the serious weather

modeling

13 that's done are done on supercomputers. Supercomputers

were

14 derived in part to help define some of the weather

phenomena

15 in use for artillery planning, for instance, so the whole

16 process of going and trying to model the weather, wind

17 fields, the consequences of air density changes and all of

18 those impacts, is at the heart of understanding where the

19 winds are going, and if you understand where the winds are

20 going you've got a much better chance of knowing where a

21 hazardous material is likely to go.

22 The last issue I'd like to raise is that we use

23 models to extrapolate the situations that we can't test

24 the real world. It's very unlikely that we'll ever have

25 situation anywhere in the world that we can test what

160

1 happens if one metric ton or ten metric tons of sarin in

2 bunker is struck by a large munition and quantitate the

3 downwind hazard. There are very few places in the world

4 that we could do it, and even if we could find a place

5 the world that we felt safe doing it for environmental

and

6 humanity reasons, the association with whether or not

the

7 relationships of the wind effects of that particular

8 environment actually are representative for any

particular

9 place in the world where we might be looking.

10 So we oftentimes end up in the business of

using

11 models to help us understand those things that we really

12 can't test in the real world.

13 We oftentimes will use various stimulants to

14 benchmark our model in attempts to find out how different

15 behave with troops and how we can better improve the

16 relationship. But generally models, especially hazardous

17 release models, are there because we can't run the trials.

18 There are too many things that change from case to case to

19 ever ultimately have run an experiment in which we know

20 precisely the result. Models allow us to do that kind of

21 experimentation.

22 Next slide, please.

23 I want to talk about several of the key factors

24 that are involved in developing a modeling profile of

25 looking at a hazardous release situation. One of the

first

161

1 issues that we have to look at is exactly what kind of

2 material, what kind of hazardous material might there be

3 there? Is it a particular compound or a particular agent?

4 If so, how pure is it, what are the impurities? because

5 they'll affect the physical properties that will determine

6 ultimately what will happen.

7 Even some simple questions, like how much was

8 there, how was it stored when it was there? Both, is it

9 a container or is it in a weapon? Does the weapon have

high

10 explosive, does the weapon have fuses? All of these

issues

11 come into play to understand what potentially might happen

12 in that bunker when it's struck, and oftentimes are

outside

13 of our knowledge base and take us to the world of

14 establishing plausible ranges of what can happen.

15 One of the other issues that we frequently get

16 into is looking at the release conditions -- no, please

stay

17 on that slide. Stay on that slide. The release

conditions,

18 what I'm talking about is inside the bunker and the

19 container that has the munition, is there an explosive

20 event? Does liquid agent spill out of the warhead? Is

21 there a small hole in the container where it is leaking?

22 there a small hole where vapor is escaping and liquid

isn't

23 being released? Knowing how the agent is coming out of

its

24 container is a very important element to define the

25 consequences of what's going to happen. Also one of those

162

1 situations that we have to do parametrically because we

2 don't have video inside of a bunker to look at what's

3 happening.

4 The other element, and I'll talk about it a

little

5 bit more later, is how the agent might potentially get out

6 of a bunker. A bomb comes into a bunker, does it create a

7 single hole and explode inside the bunker creating,

8 releasing agent from its container creating a high

velocity

9 jet of liquid and vapor out that same hole that it came

in,

10 or did it explode inside the shelter, shattering the

shelter

11 walls, collapsing the roof? Those different phenomena

cause

12 different ways that we need to represent the release based

13 on what happened.

14 One of the things that this modeling capability

15 tuned to address and focus on is the representation of the

16 weather. Which way the wind's blowing and what kind of

17 atmospheric conditions the material's going to be

18 transported in becomes a central issue for looking at

where

19 the material is going to go.

20 MR. CROSS: Mr. McNally, I think we understand

21 what we're seeing here. I think what we all want to know

22 is, what happens when it does get up in the atmosphere. I

23 sense there's a lot of what-ifs, and I think we all

24 appreciate that. But, I think the gist of the question

is,

25 if something is in the atmosphere what happens, how far

can

163

1 it travel, how soon can it get to you.

2 MR. McNALLY: Okay. Well, let me do just two

3 preliminary slides.

4 Can I have the next slide, please?

5 When it's in the atmosphere, we need to know

about

6 the winds. This happens to be some of the work that I did

7 while I was in Defense Nuclear Agency in the basement

doing

8 near real-time hazard reporting during Desert Storm. What

9 we were doing there was establishing footprints of

potential

10 hazard path, and we had a real-time weather team there

11 predicting the winds for us. So an initial depiction when

12 we get the, in this case, SCUD warning, it might look like

13 the top graph. As we get more weather information four

14 hours into the process it might look like the middle

graph,

15 and the third graph might look like what we might see

after

16 we finally know what the wind was like during the entire

17 duration the hazard might have been in the air.

18 The important point is that the winds are

19 changing, the weather is changing, it can dramatically

20 affect those kinds of consequences.

21 Next slide, please.

22 The wind direction tells you where it's going to

23 go, the atmospheric stability is the key determinant on

how

24 far it's going to get downwind. Releases in lapse

25 conditions, the unstable conditions that are typical and

164

1 under strong sunlit days tends to limit -- tends to limit

2 the spread to the shortest spread possible. The converse

3 that, in nighttime conditions where inversion set in, it's

4 oftentimes that we can see hazard patterns that are

5 hundredfold further downwind than we might see it for the

6 same release in unstable conditions.

7 Neutral conditions, the kind of stability

8 conditions that predominate during dawn, during dusk, or

9 during rain, rain-type conditions is intermediate between

10 the two, so it's about a factor of ten further than we

find

11 in stable conditions, and a factor of ten shorter than

we'd

12 see during lapse conditions.

13 Next slide, please.

14 Okay. Why don't we skip the last two.

15 Okay, the footprint -- no, we don't want to do

the

16 footprint yet, I'm sorry.

17 Unfortunately these charts are in very fine

detail

18 and you need to get close to look at them.

19 Essentially what we have -- and you can put up

the

20 -- yeah, okay. Essentially what we've prepared is our

21 latest assessment on what the wind fields happened to be

22 the 17th through 19th of January in the area from Ad

Nazirea

23 south through Hafar al Batin.

24 If you look at each column, essentially going

down

25 the column what we have represented, the wind vectors at

165

1 various heights, starting from on the surface, the next

one

2 being at 500 meters, the next one below that being 1,000

3 meters and the bottom one being two kilometers. Across

you

4 see the graphs at every two-hour increment.

5 If you notice when it was going by, or you can

see

6 on the viewgraph represented up above, we've represented

the

7 wind fields. Not only the direction represented by the

way

8 the arrow is pointing, but the size of the arrow actually

9 represents what the wind speed was at that particular

10 location in that particular time.

11 One of the very interesting/disturbing

12 observations when we started to look in detail at this

13 weather was the fact that there is a low-level phenomena

14 that at this stage is out in this region. Okay. It will

15 moving east across the area as time goes on. It's what

16 meteorologists call a back door cold front. One of the

17 reasons that that becomes real interesting is it tends

18 cause wind fields that circle around a hot humid

release,

19 mass of air and will tend to keep the mass of air

moving

20 across the screen.

21 One of the issues that often comes up as we

22 through the various reports is winds going in different

23 directions. When you look at some of the surface

results

24 with the very small wind vectors, those are situations

25 likely to have people very close together seeing the

wind

166

1 going in different directions. That's a sample that in

this

2 case, at an upper altitude, you see the magnitude of the

3 winds, in this case, of having increased greatly in

slightly

4 above this level, in the 2,300 to 2,700 range we have

5 laminar flow that essentially doesn't change very much.

6 When I talked about atmospheric stability just a

7 little while ago, I was talking about that region of the

8 atmosphere, lots of turbulent activities, lots of real

9 activity within the atmosphere. As things go higher,

things

10 tend to be less affected by what's happening on the

surface.

11 MR. CROSS: Can you wrap this up in about five

12 minutes? because I think we'd like to get in a question

and

13 answer session.

14 MR. McNALLY: There should be a slide on

15 estimating the amount of agent released.

16 In looking at a bunker case, we started with an

17 estimate based on the size of the bunker and what could

18 actually be stored there, and we looked at a variety of

19 different fills, everything from SCUD warheads through

bombs

20 through rocket launcher fills, and that helped us to

21 establish the range of how much mass potentially could be

22 there.

23 The next step was looking at what could actually

24 happen to the bunker, the issue of where the bomb goes off

25 in the bunker and what kind of frag explosive blast, heat

167

1 thermal effects and how that's going to affect the

warhead.

2 There you see that our expected level of release was at

the

3 2.5 metric ton range with a high estimate of as high as

4 eight metric tons and a low of 100th of a metric ton.

5 When we looked at the consequences on likely

6 storage containers, we also had parametrically

established

7 what potentially could happen. In this case, we're

looking

8 at something in the range of .005 to a high of five where

9 the value we thought that might potentially be available

10 through release in this nominal case was one metric ton.

11 Next estimate brought us down to how much we

could

12 actually expect to see leaving the bunker, and our

expected

13 value was at .6 metric tons with a high estimate of four

14 metric tons. And finally we had to get down to the issue

15 how to represent the manner in which the mass left the

16 bunker; was it a large volume of agent that was just

17 released from a smashed bunker, or was it agent released

18 a heated plume that rose to some particular height.

19 In this particular case we represented a heated

20 vertical plume rising to 40 meters above the bunker.

21 Okay. Next slide, please.

22 From this particular release, this is a

23 representation of the hazard footprint that we're looking

24 at. The legend on the right starts at the lethal level.

25 would expect all those people in the red area to not

survive

168

1 without medical intervention or use of protective

equipment.

2 The yellow is incapacitation. These would be very sick

3 people. In fact, the majority of them would need

artificial

4 respiration if they were going to survive in the

particular

5 situation. They would be vomiting, they would be

6 convulsing, they would be very sick indeed. The green

level

7 represents visual impairment, and here we're talking about

8 full constriction of the pupils and fixed, their lenses

9 would be fixed so they couldn't focus on items that would

10 close to them. These people would have trouble operating

11 a bright sunlight condition because they would have strong

12 watering of their eyes and strong blinking of their

eyelids.

13 These people would also have trouble at nighttime, their

14 vision would at dusk/dawn conditions would be like

midnight.

15 And last this threshold, the beginning of effects that we

16 look at.

17 So if you notice on this pattern, threshold goes

18 out to about 70 kilometers. The lethal area that we'd

see,

19 two areas of lethal, the area close in because of not only

20 the initial vapor that was released but the liquid falling

21 back out of the plume; the area downwind caused by primary

22 evaporation during the event as well as secondary

23 evaporation as things happen.

24 Because we represented a release before the

switch

25 to neutral on this particular day, we get a fairly long

169

1 extensive pattern at nearly the limits of what we might

2 expect for the one metric ton release.

3 On the map that Sylvia is bringing around,

that's

4 essentially how the pattern looks on a scaled map for the

5 region as released from Ad Nazirea.

6 One the bottom quarter you see the Saudi border

7 and on the right side you see the tip of Kuwait.

8 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: Just a simple question with

9 this. The hazardous material, is this with any chemical

10 hazardous material we're talking about, this kind of

pattern

11 could exist?

12 MR. McNALLY: Well, in this case we're looking

13 the nerve agent sarin specifically.

14 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: Sarin, okay.

15 MR. McNALLY: Things change slightly when you

16 change agents because they change the volatility of the

17 evaporation characteristics.

18 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: Okay.

19 MR. McNALLY: And we have to worry about the

20 evaporation, the droplet sizes, as well as the primary

vapor

21 in a nerve agent. In a chemical agent situation, one of

the

22 key design elements for the agent is it has a volatility

and

23 a range that allows you to get out the liquid over an area

24 of interest. And typically these agents have their

dominant

25 effects by the vapor that they produce from evaporating.

170

1 Sarin is the most evaporative, most quickly evaporative of

2 the nerve agents that we've looked at.

3 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: And the amount of time, how

long

4 can this stay airborne?

5 MR. McNALLY: Depends on the size. Now, at the

6 extreme small end vapor essentially, things that we treat

7 smaller than five microns in size on down to just

molecular

8 vapor, these will tend to stay suspended in the air by air

9 currents and they'll go wherever the air goes until one of

10 the agent removal processes will take them out. That

could

11 be rain, that could be depositing on the soil, filtered

out

12 by vegetation, agglomerating onto something else in the

air

13 like soot particles, for instance.

14 As the size goes up, the atmospheric time that

15 stays in the air becomes much smaller. At 100 microns,

16 which is the median size I represented in this heated

17 vertical plume, these agents are going to fall to the

ground

18 inside of several hundred meters.

19 MR. BROWN: Mr. McNally, you did an excellent

job

20 explaining how complicated this kind of modeling is and

how

21 many assumptions have to be made, how much more or less

22 uncertain data has to be incorporated into this type of

23 modeling.

24 My question is, how sensitive is the types of

25 results you've shown us, the direction of the plume and

size

171

1 of the plume and so forth, as to maybe changes in some of

2 those assumptions which are less than perfect in many

cases?

3 MR. McNALLY: The sensitivity varies by

different

4 factors. One of the rules of thumb that we use oftentimes

5 is that if you change the mass that's released by a factor

6 of two, it will change the area in a footprint chart like

7 this on the order of 15 percent.

8 So if I was wrong, for instance, in estimating

9 this one metric ton release and it was really two

metric

10 tons, we would expect the area represented by each of

the

11 contours to be about 15 percent longer. Now, that

isn't

12 good for the entire domain, but it certainly is good

for

13 order of magnitude kinds of misses in the estimates, and

14 typically run our parametrics up down.

15 Other issues like wind direction depends an

awful

16 lot on the kinds of met conditions that are actually

there.

17 The synoptic situation, what you see on the weather map

that

18 you see on the TV every night, movements and fronts and

lows

19 will tend to change those local effects.

20 We now are at the state of modeling that we

think

21 we can do reasonably well. What does reasonably well

mean?

22 Neutral stability conditions, we think that the

variability,

23 the statistical variability in the wind direction in

neutral

24 conditions is about 18 degrees. What that means and what

25 our experience has been, if you go out and you measure 50

172

1 meters apart at the same time, you'll get about an 18

degree

2 difference in the wind direction from the different

3 measuring sites. If you measured from the same site 15

4 seconds or longer apart, you get that same kind of 18-

degree

5 variability. If you go to inversion conditions, that kind

6 of standard deviation drops to about 10 degrees.

7 So depending on exactly what kind of conditions

8 you're at are going to depend the range of the variability

9 and it's going to tell you where things might point.

10 So if I can just give you a brief example. In

11 this case here, over the three hours where the majority

12 this vapor causes the concentrations and of the threshold

13 effects, we're transitioning from inversion conditions to

14 neutral conditions, what that would mean for wind

direction

15 estimates is, although our model plays variation in what

16 gets, if we were to add the, add the consequences of what

17 degrees range might be, we might expect a pattern to

wobble

18 in this kind of event. More likely what's going to happen

19 is the expected value will will out and dominate the

effects

20 of the expected values.

21 But it does for any particular point make a

22 difference. One of the characteristics to understand

about

23 our current class of models is that they're Gaussian

models

24 which includes that kind of variability in the spread.

25 They're real good at giving us the amount of area that a

173

1 hazard might exist, not nearly as good at telling us

exactly

2 what dosage might be at any particular point.

3 MR. TURNER: Based on your modeling, Mr.

McNally,

4 could the coalition bombing of suspected chemical warfare

5 agent storage sites at Ad Nazirea on January 17th, 1991,

6 have caused exposures to U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia?

7 MR. McNALLY: I'm going to have to first lay

outa

8 couple of conditions on my answer, if you don't mind.

9 First off, my modeling assumes there's agent

there

10 and right now we don't know that there's any agent there.

11 Certainly that influences my answer.

12 This class of modeling for any amount of agent

13 weapons that could fit in that bunker is incapable of

14 generating significant concentrations down as far as the

15 Saudi border.

16 In addition to that fact, one of the things that

17 really concerns us as one of the natural consequences of

the

18 modeling is to get low concentrations somewhere else there

19 have to be big concentrations and big exposures close to

20 where it's going to be released. That would create large

21 amounts of lethal casualties, even with this one metric

ton

22 result, for instance, inside that red area at the base of

23 the --

24 MR. TURNER: But that's not really part of your

25 model, is it? That's evidence that would confirm what

your

174

1 model predicts, isn't it?

2 MR. McNALLY: That's what we would -- it's a

3 natural consequence to the model, and is part of what we

4 look at as the total picture of the application of

modeling.

5 MR. TURNER: But the answer to the question is

6 that, based on your modeling, it is not plausible that

7 bombing of that site could have caused significant amounts

8 of chemical warfare agent, specifically sarin, to be

9 deposited on U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia; is that correct?

10 MR. McNALLY: Based on my modeling with NUSEA

and

11 VLS track and D2PC, the series of models that we've used

and

12 are represented here, we cannot get hazardous material

south

13 of the Saudi border.

14 MR. TURNER: Now your model also assumes, if I

15 understood you correctly, a heated plume that went 40

meters

16 into the air; is that correct?

17 MR. McNALLY: In this particular representation

18 that's what we've done. We've looked at a variety of

19 releases at different heights and different

characteristics.

20 But the one I've shown you today was of a plume of 40

meters

21 height.

22 MR. TURNER: And that's for one metric ton of

23 sarin, not a larger quantity.

24 MR. McNALLY: Sarin, yes, sir.

25 MR. TURNER: If there were a larger quantity of

175

1 sarin at that site, that would extend that footprint,

would

2 it not?

3 MR. McNALLY: It would in fact extend the

4 footprint. We have looked upwards through our estimate of

5 what can be in the bunker, and my statement earlier about

6 the modeling showing it not getting past Saudi is a

summary

7 of all my modeling.

8 MR. TURNER: You said significant amount of

9 chemical warfare agent. What does that mean, significant

10 amount?

11 MR. McNALLY: Well, significant amount means

12 certainly levels at which we'd see any acute threshold

13 effects.

14 MR. TURNER: So you're using the acute

threshold

15 as a significant amount, not a lower level?

16 MR. McNALLY: That we have -- we have also

looked

17 at other light levels. We have looked for instance at

the

18 levels of the Czech detection equipment, and we do not

see

19 those levels attainable below the border for masses of

20 material we think could be in the bunker with this model.

21 MR. TURNER: Before and during the Gulf War,

Mr.

22 McNally, you performed modeling for the Department of

23 Defense and our intelligence community, didn't you, of

24 possible fall-out patterns from bombed Iraqi storage

sites?

25 MR. McNALLY: Yes, sir, I was at Defense Nuclear

176

1 Agency from 6 January to 15 April.

2 MR. TURNER: Now those analyses that you

performed

3 in that time frame, they were not of each specific site

that

4 was targeted, were they?

5 MR. McNALLY: I was one person in Operations

6 Center. My job was to do parametric assessment of what

7 could happen with bunker releases, so I went through and

did

8 parametric assessment for a whole variety of bunker sizes,

9 weapons that might be in there and agent fills inside of

10 those weapons across a whole variety of weather

conditions.

11 Now, I believe that the director of Defense

12 Nuclear Agency at that time was directly working with

others

13 to apply that technology to understanding what would

happen

14 with bunker strikes.

15 MR. TURNER: So you did not analyze for each

16 specific site on the amount of agent that might be there

and

17 the other variables that go into making the assessment for

18 that particular site; is that correct?

19 MR. McNALLY: I did not do site-specific work,

20 sir.

21 MR. TURNER: Your post-war analysis has focused

22 An Ayzariyah, hasn't it?

23 MR. McNALLY: That is correct, sir.

24 MR. TURNER: You've not modeled any of the other

25 sites?

177

1 MR. McNALLY: I have not modeled any site other

2 than An Ayzariyah.

3 MR. CROSS: Do you plan on, in your future work,

4 to model some of the other sites like As Safiyah storage

5 facility and Talialief (ph) Airfield?

6 MR. McNALLY: Those have been suggested, and I'm

7 not the best person to ask. I will do what my customer

asks

8 me, but I think we will be doing those other sites.

9 MS. COPELAND: We will do those other sites.

10 MR. CROSS: Okay, because at this point we're

11 interested in maybe inviting you back to the main

meeting

12 with some analysis of those sites.

13 One other question I have, Mr. McNally, I was

14 under the impression that the prevailing winds went

from

15 predominantly north to southeast, which would mean Baghdad

16 to down across the Kuwaiti theater of operation. If I saw

17 these graphs correctly, it appeared that the prevailing

18 winds actually went the other direction.

19 MR. McNALLY: That is --

20 MR. CROSS: Went from south to north or

northeast.

21 MR. McNALLY: You have correctly read the

charts.

22 One of the phenomena that we had in place was this low-

level

23 backdoor front passing through. It changed the surface

wind

24 direction for a period of time, on the order of -- I'd

have

25 to look closely, but on the order of 20 to -- 20 hours or

178

1 so, during this time frame. So that in this particular

2 region, the wind was not going in the dominant

climatic

3 direction, it was going in a direction dominated by

this

4 frontal system, which was very unusual for this time

5 year, a very unusual consequence. But it did, based on

all

6 the weather observations and the global modelings inputs

7 that we have to our modeling system, indicate that that

8 local effect did happen and it was not a wind from the

9 normal direction.

10 Now, if you go higher into the atmosphere, above

11 the mixing layer that was dominated by this backdoor front

12 -- for instance, I have plots also as high as 5000 meters

13 the 5000 meter charts show that general laminar flow going

14 west to east, generally in the direction of Baghdad to

15 Kuwait.

16 MS. GWIN: Have you done any modeling that would

17 show what happened to Sarin that was carried to that

level?

18 MR. McNALLY: Yes, I have looked at what happens

19 if it gets out of the mixing layer, in which case -- the

20 diffusion characteristics are different up there, it

doesn't

21 spread as quickly, it's a different kind of diffusion, but

22 the dominant wind flow and the horizontal structure -- the

23 vertical structure of the atmosphere essentially takes it

24 out into the Gulf and across Iran.

25 MR. CROSS: Essentially, you're saying that if

the

179

1 chemicals get up that high, now it's in the upper level

wind

2 phenomenon which has a lower level which is going in the

3 opposite direction, so if something got up that high and

4 traveled some distance, it wouldn't necessarily drop

back

5 down again because you have a lower level air mass

that's

6 going in the opposite direction, is that --

7 MR. McNALLY: Yes, sir. That happens because

8 the time it gets to that altitude, it's a small size,

it's

9 not going to tend to have much gravitational settling,

10 it's going to stay with its air mass. So it tends to

stay

11 there.

12 There's a second phenomena that also comes

into

13 play. At the interface between the turbulent mixing

area,

14 the air of the lower atmosphere and that laminar flow of

the

15 upper atmosphere, there's an eddy-structure interface that

16 happens. It actually acts as a barrier to typically stop

17 particles smaller than 60 microns from penetrating it very

18 easily or very rapidly. So things on either side of that

19 boundary tend mainly to stay on that side of the boundary.

20 MR. CROSS: Mr. McNally and Ms. Copeland, thank

21 you very much. I'd like to wrap this up.

22 I'd like to take a break and follow up at 2:45.

23 Paul Sullivan from the Georgia Gulf War Veterans will be

24 the podium. Thank you.

25 (A scheduled recess was taken.)

180

1 MR. CROSS: I'd like to go ahead and get the

2 committee meeting going again.

3 Let me take this time now, I thank everybody's

4 patience and understanding. We have a full slate here, we

5 knew it as a committee going in. I've tried to give

enough

6 time to everybody for their say and again, thank you for

7 your patience.

8 We have with us now Paul Sullivan, and I think

9 we're ready to go forward.

10 NONGOVERNMENTAL INVESTIGATIONS OF

11 POSSIBLE EXPOSURES TO CBW AGENTS

12 MR. SULLIVAN: My name is Paul Sullivan, I'm the

13 Senior Vice President of the Gulf War Veterans of Georgia,

14 Incorporated, and before I begin I wanted to introduce a

few

15 of our members and officers of the Gulf War Veterans of

16 Georgia. If you'd stand, Ron, Dave, Stan -- all of our

17 members -- just to let you know that we've all taken off

18 work from professional careers to be with you here

today.

19 We're all volunteers doing this. Okay?

20 MR. CROSS: And Paul, let me also say, we have

21 too. We are also private citizens here. We're with you

22 that one. Thank you.

23 MR. SULLIVAN: I'd also -- before I begin, the

24 Georgia Vietnam Veterans Alliance asked that we put their

25 testimony in part of the record, and I'll give that to

181

1 someone to have it put in the record.

2 Allow me to begin my testimony with a clear-cut

3 medical diagnosis made during the Gulf War by U.S. Army

4 Colonel Michael Dunn, M.D. He wrote in his diagnosis, "I

5 conclude that PFC Fisher's skin injury was caused by

6 exposure to liquid mustard chemical warfare agent." And

7 have heard COL Dunn speak with regard to the diagnosis

that

8 he made. I also want to note that he spoke about the

9 possibility of other contaminants -- and I'll digress

from

10 my testimony, but I have his original diagnosis made on

the

11 battlefield, and he wrote, and I quote, "No other

corrosive

12 or skin-toxic chemical compound that could reasonably be

13 expected to have been present on the battlefield shows

this

14 latent period." In other words, he had ruled out other

15 possibilities at the time of his diagnosis. I want to

make

16 sure that that's a clarification on his comments this

17 afternoon.

18 Therefore, on behalf of the members of the Gulf

19 War Veterans of Georgia, I want to welcome you all to

20 Atlanta and thank you for this opportunity to discuss

21 chemical warfare agent incidents that took place during

the

22 Gulf War in 1991. We also want to offer a few suggested

23 policy changes to President Clinton.

24 The Gulf War Veterans of Georgia is a

nonprofit

25 veterans organization founded in 1994 with the number

one

182

1 goal of promoting the health and welfare of those who

served

2 in Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm. Our

objective

3 this morning is to provide evidence to the Presidential

4 Advisory Committee to support our contention that chemical

5 weapons were present on the battlefield and that those

6 weapons caused injury to our soldiers.

7 Our members strongly believe that chemical and

8 biological warfare agent exposure is an essential

9 component -- it's not the only factor, it's a component --

10 toward understanding the illnesses affecting veterans of

the

11 Gulf War. Based on the evidence, there is no doubt that

12 chemicals were present on the front lines during the Gulf

13 War, and by whatever means those chemicals were released

and

14 caused subsequent injury to those present.

15 Since August 1994, the Gulf War Veterans of

16 Georgia has sought evidence regarding chemical warfare

agent

17 incidents during Operation Desert Storm. As part of the

18 National Gulf War Resource Center, the Gulf War Veterans

19 Georgia is tasked with the responsibility of procuring and

20 distributing chemical incident reports on the national

level

21 to the media, to Gulf War veteran groups and to the

22 Presidential Panel.

23 I just want to note for the record that all

these

24 documents have been given to the panel and that you've had

25 an opportunity to see all 60 pages of the exhibits.

183

1 Let's start at the beginning. The Department of

2 Defense denies -- and we just heard them -- that any

3 chemical warfare agents were present, let alone used,

during

4 the Gulf War. On May 25, 1994, William Perry, then-

5 Secretary of Defense, and General John Shalikashvili,

6 Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said there was

7 information, classified or unclassified, that

indicates

8 chemical or biological weapons were used in the

Persian

9 Gulf. This is a total, firm and unyielding denial by the

10 Pentagon. And for the record, the Department of Defense

11 refuses to cooperate with Gulf War veteran organizations

12 not releasing all of the relevant documents such as

chemical

13 incident reports, even though we have requested them under

14 the Freedom of Information Act. Furthermore, the

Department

15 of Veterans Affairs refuses to cooperate with our

16 investigation by not releasing statistics on the number of

17 deaths caused by the war, especially cancer-related

deaths.

18 The documents described by Colonel Koenigsberg

and

19 Colonel Martin have not been made available to the Gulf

War

20 Veterans of Georgia, even though we have requested them.

21 specifically sent them a letter and offered to cooperate

22 several months ago, and that letter that we sent to

Colonel

23 Koenigsberg has been given to the committee.

24 The Department of Defense task force has not

25 offered to meet with us, the main Gulf War veteran

184

1 organization doing research on this issue. Therefore,

their

2 claims to have done all this outreach -- although is

3 laudable and stuff -- we've been well-known as the

principal

4 group in the country conducting research -- they haven't

5 bothered to call us. We wrote them.

6 Common sense approach. Our view of this issue

7 a common sense approach. Tens of thousands of veterans

are

8 ill and there are a limited number of possible causes.

Due

9 to the documented presence and use of chemical warfare

10 agents by Iraq, it is our conclusion that some of the

11 illnesses reported by veterans of Desert Storm are

12 attributable to exposure to toxic chemicals used by the

13 Iraqi military. And I want to say some -- not all. This

14 includes not only the well-known chemical warfare agents

15 such as Sarin, Soman, Tabun and mustard gases, but it also

16 includes the intentional use of massive amounts of oilwell

17 fire pollution to poison and otherwise cause injury to

18 American soldiers fighting in the Gulf War.

19 We have seven well-documented examples of

chemical

20 incidents during Desert Storm to share with the committee.

21 While there have been denials, there is no official

22 refutation of any of the items described here today.

Again,

23 it is important to emphasize the government has not

24 retracted or offered contradictory evidence for the

25 information cited here.

185

1 First, the most convincing evidence showing

2 American troops were exposed is contained in a memo

written

3 by Major General Ronald Blank, who is a doctor, and the

4 commander of Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Dr. Blank

has

5 not to our knowledge retracted his sweeping pronouncement

6 regarding low-level chemical exposure. Dr. Blank went to

7 the Persian Gulf area, met with different countries and

8 assessed the battlefield area and he wrote on January 18,

9 quote, "Conclusions: Clearly, chemical warfare agents

were

10 detected and confirmed at very low levels. Therefore, the

11 presumption of their presence must be made. Of course, it

12 cannot be ruled out that chemical warfare agents could

have

13 contributed to the illnesses in susceptible individuals."

14 And I want to note that this memo was written before

General

15 Shalikashvili and Secretary Perry said that there was no

16 information regarding chemical usage. It's a case where

the

17 left hand is doing something and the right hand is doing

the

18 other, and they don't know which hand is which. It's

19 thoroughly confusing, even at the highest levels.

20 Second -- our second example -- during Operation

21 Desert Storm, a detailed record of chemical incidents was

22 kept by the U.S. military at central command in Riyadh.

23 January 27, 1995, Lieutenant General Richard Neal

24 declassified and released these previously secret logs

25 showing that there were a lot of chemical incidents during

186

1 the Gulf War. As I noted before, the Department of

Defense

2 simply denies the existence of these incidents, without

3 offering any evidence to substantiate their denials. They

4 offer verbal denials and no substantive documentary

denials.

5 In the eleven pages of central command's NBC log

6 -- nuclear, biological and chemical -- there are at least

7 eleven chemical warfare agent incidents, including the

8 discovery of chemical munitions, the exposure and injury

9 troops, and even an attack upon Israel during Desert

Storm.

10 Here is the entry: January 18, 1991, at 5:00 a.m.,

General

11 Norman Schwarzkopf's log at central command, quote,

"Israeli

12 police confirmed nerve gas, probably GF." That's a

specific

13 type. Note that it says -- doesn't say "reported," it

14 doesn't say "detected," it doesn't say "suspected." It

says

15 "confirmed." That's a very high level when you've got a

16 lieutenant colonel we believe, writing this report on

behalf

17 of a four-star general. This was not something written

ina

18 chaotic manner, according to the testimony provided

earlier

19 by the government witnesses. This is a very deliberate

20 entry into an official record.

21 Jim Turner, when asked about this -- and he

works

22 at the Pentagon -- he was asked by reporters about our

23 release of this incident -- he said the incident

simply

24 didn't take place. He offered no follow-up report,

25 documentation, nothing. He just simply said it didn't

take

187

1 place.

2 MS. GWIN: Could we confirm just for the record,

3 you're not talking about this Jim Turner.

4 MR. SULLIVAN: With all due respect, James

Turner

5 is how we describe the gentleman to your left, my right,

who

6 is the investigator for the panel -- that's correct.

7 MR. TURNER: I appreciate that, Mr. Sullivan.

8 MR. SULLIVAN: Jim Turner works for the Pentagon

9 -- I'm sorry.

10 Third, you've already seen the videotape and

11 that's mentioned here in our testimony and I don't need to

12 go into that.

13 Fourth, the committee was set to hear, and I

spoke

14 to Mike Kowalok, he was -- Bob Wages already spoke, but

15 Major Gus Grant was supposed to testify, and his notarized

16 statement is provided to the committee, where he talks

about

17 how he catalogued captured Iraqi chemical munitions during

18 the Gulf War.

19 Now, my question is how can an active-duty

United

20 States Army major catalogue something and then the fine

21 gentlemen behind me with careers in the military say

they

22 weren't even there? We have a serious discrepancy in

the

23 testimony there.

24 Our fifth major incident that we want to

bring

25 forward is that Mr. Gary Pitts, who is an attorney in

188

1 Houston, Texas, has released a 32-page memo dated last

month

2 to the Presidential Advisory Committee. Do you have that,

3 Mr. Turner?

4 MR. TURNER: Yes, we do.

5 MR. SULLIVAN: Okay. Mr. Pitts represents ill

6 veterans who claim they were exposed to chemical warfare

7 agents. The veterans have filed a lawsuit against

chemical

8 manufacturers, most of them in the United States, who

9 allegedly had negligently sold chemical warfare agents

10 and/or technology to the belligerent Iraqi dictator

Saddam

11 Hussein. In the memo, Mr. Pitts lists quotes by 250 ill

12 veterans who believe they were exposed to chemical

weapons

13 during the Gulf War. One dramatic quote is listed up

there,

14 U.S. Army Command Sergeant Major Vincent Conway -- and by

15 the way, that is the highest rank you can attain as an

16 enlisted officer -- quote, "We had SCUD missiles fly

17 overhead and break up. Our chemical alarms went off.

The

18 day of the start of the war, artillery was fired to our

19 right flank, our chemical alarms went off again."

That's

20 two. "One time in a holding area, all 54 chemical

alarms

21 went up." That's three. "My unit was about one or two

22 miles down wind of a 300-bunker ammo dump on the Basrah

23 highway." That's in Iraq. "Chemical and biological

rounds

24 were in the bunker." That's four separate things that

he's

25 alleging in the statement.

189

1 Sixth, in a manner similar to the United States

2 central command, the 101st Airborne Division of the

United

3 States Army also kept a detailed nuclear, biological and

4 chemical incident log. In response to a Freedom of

5 Information Act request, it was released to the Gulf War

6 Veterans of Georgia in July of 1995. The 101st Airborne

log

7 is replete with numerous chemical warfare agent incidents,

8 including chemical injuries and chemical attacks. And

this

9 is one just to show that different countries were

affected,

10 here we have a French report, the French 6th Division has

11 detected light traces of chemical agent Tabun and Sarin in

12 their tactical assembly area.

13 As a note, we specifically asked for the follow-

14 reports for each of the incidents, and we were denied

access

15 to the reports. So we have a sense of skepticism from the

16 veterans' point of view, because we say, okay, there's an

17 incident and then the Pentagon says well, we've

investigated

18 it and we've looked at the report and it didn't happen.

19 Well, how come we can't see the follow-up report? It just

20 leads to a great deal of skepticism when we ask for it and

21 we don't get it.

22 Seventh, as mentioned before, we had Colonel

Dunn

23 here describing his diagnosis of PFC David Allen Fisher.

24 Just for the record, Fisher was the recipient of a Purple

25 Heart for his chemical injuries, and we do note for the

190

1 record that Dr. Dunn did not retract his diagnosis. He

said

2 there may have been other causes but he did not retract

the

3 diagnosis.

4 What we want to do here is assist the Pentagon

5 researchers in the different types of chemical exposures.

6 An analysis of chemical incident reports shows a variety

7 the types of exposures. We want to be very clear here,

8 there was no mass gassing and our claims of chemical

warfare

9 agent presence should not be misconstrued to reach such a

10 conclusion. Listed below are four general types of

chemical

11 warfare agent exposures:

12 The first is direct attack or exposure. We've

had

13 members of the 24th NMCB speak here this morning regarding

14 that incident, which by the way is also mentioned in

General

15 Schwarzkopf's log. And this also includes a confirmed

nerve

16 agent attack upon Israel, which is also in the NBC log.

17 These are clearly offensive uses of chemicals by the

Iraqis.

18 In addition, we want to talk about -- it's

19 offensive when you deploy mines, okay, it's an offensive

use

20 even though the military strategy is defensive, you don't

21 want someone to come in your territory. But the mere fact

22 that they have been deployed, the chemical agents in the

23 mines, is an offensive use of chemical agents for the

24 description cited here. And what we have is the 1st

25 Battalion 6th marines were exposed to chemical warfare

191

1 agents when they breached Iraqi chemical minefields on

2 February 24, 1991. According to the official

published

3 history of the 2nd Marine, Lieutenant Colonel Moskowski --

4 and I'm sorry if I mispronounce it -- wrote, quote, "At

5 approximately 0656 hours, the Fox chemical reconnaissance

6 vehicle at Lane Red-1 detected a trace of mustard gas

7 originally thought to be from a chemical mine." And

further

8 in the quote, because it's a rather lengthy quote, he

wrote

9 that "The chemicals were still sufficiently strong to

cause

10 blistering on the exposed arms of two AAV crewmen." And

11 that was mentioned by the panel staff earlier. This is an

12 official published history in 1993. And again, in 1994,

the

13 Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of

14 Staff said they knew nothing -- and here's a published

15 report. This again leads to more skepticism on the part

16 the veterans.

17 The second type is incidental exposure, and

18 Colonel Dunn has discussed this in detail, and that has

19 do with the soldier going down into the bunker where the

20 Iraqi chemical warfare agents were forward deployed in

21 northern Kuwait and southern Iraq. Just as a point, I

have

22 the original diagnosis, the soldier was in Kuwait when he

23 went into the bunker, not Iraq, as reported by the

Pentagon.

24 Okay? So that's again, further evidence that there were

25 chemical weapons forward deployed and that there may have

192

1 been additional incidental exposures because one of the

2 requirements of what we did was to go into every bunker

and

3 clear them to make sure there were no enemy soldiers in

4 them.

5 The third type -- and we've gone into great

detail

6 on that here today -- is low-level long-range exposure.

7 Again, the Pentagon says that these entries made by

General

8 Schwarzkopf's aide were made in a chaotic manner in the

9 haste of war. But let me point out for the committee,

there

10 are two separate entries on two different days describing

11 the same phenomenon. Okay? And leading to a specific

12 event and a specific cause and a specific result. And for

13 the record, it says that on January 20, 1991,

14 Czechoslovakian recon report detected GA and GB -- those

are

15 chemical warfare agents -- and that hazard is flowing down

16 from factory storage bombed in Iraq. Predictably, this

has

17 become, is going to become a problem.

18 The next day -- slide nine please -- again,

Czechs

19 were called who reported trace quantities of specific

20 types -- not just that there's something out there -- but

21 Tabun, Soman and Yperite, which was caused by fallout from

22 bombing of Iraqi chemical warfare storage weapon sites.

And

23 for the record, General Schwarzkopf in his famous, mother-

24 of-all press conferences on the second to last day of the

25 ground war -- that was I believe the 27th or 28th of

193

1 February -- he fully admitted and announced that we had

2 targeted and bombed the chemical munitions sites. So

there

3 should be no debate or denial that the sites mentioned

here

4 were bombed.

5 Furthermore, chemical fallout from coalition

6 bombing is supported by the written testimony of United

7 States Air Force Colonel Willis Bullard, who told

attorney

8 Gary Pitts the following: "When the U.S. Air Force hit

the

9 Iraqi chemical manufacturing plants, the wind was blowing

10 out of the northwest, directly toward Riyadh." I presume

11 the colonel was in a position to know, and from my

personal

12 point of view, I would rather have someone on the ground

13 tell me what's going on than have some analyst five years

14 later saying well, we think the wind went this way. If

15 someone who was there and on the ground testifies that an

16 event took place, I would say that the burden of

disproving

17 him, okay, falls on the Pentagon.

18 Just for the record, I also have the National

19 Geographic publication "Environmental consequences of the

20 Persian Gulf War," and it clearly shows photographs taken

21 throughout the entire war period, and in not one of these

22 photographs is the wind doing anything other than going

from

23 either the north or from the northwest to either the south

24 or the southeast. For the record, these are satellite

25 pictures that back up what they guy on the ground was

194

1 saying. So all these made up diagrams on the board may

2 useful for theory, but here's a real picture from a real

3 satellite published in a real book that I have a little

bit

4 more faith in.

5 MR. CROSS: Mr. Sullivan, can we wrap this up in

6 about five more minutes?

7 MR. SULLIVAN: Sure, I'm almost done.

8 We want to add a little bit of controversy to

the

9 definition of chemical warfare agent exposure. And by

that,

10 we want to list oilwell fire pollution as a chemical

warfare

11 agent from the combustion of crude oil and by the pooling

12 oil on the open desert. In a manner unique to soldiers,

13 ate, slept, worked and lived in the open in some cases

only

14 hundreds of yards from lakes of unburned oil and/or

withina

15 few short kilometers of raging oilwell fires.

16 According to news reports, as many as 700 of

these

17 oilwells were set ablaze by the defeated, retreating Iraqi

18 army before they left Kuwait. Since Saddam Hussein

ordered

19 the destruction of the oilwells as an act of war, the

20 pollutants should now be considered an act of chemical

21 warfare agent usage. Although the coalition did

destroy

22 some oil facilities and is partly to blame for the

23 pollution, the overwhelming percentage of the blame must

24 squarely laid upon Saddam Hussein.

25 Most American combat troops left the Persian

Gulf

195

1 region by May of 1991. The oilwell pollution was not

2 measured by the U.S. government until May 1991, well

after

3 the soldiers were redeployed to either America or

Germany.

4 While the Pentagon studied the United States Army's 11th

5 Armored Cavalry regiment for health effects of oilwell

fire

6 pollution, the study began when the 11th ACR arrived in

7 Kuwait in May and June, well after the end of the war.

8 other words, it's an apples and oranges -- it's a non-

study

9 and of no value.

10 In many cases, entire units were stationed in

the

11 Romalia [phonetic] oilfields and we have a quote from a

12 general verifying that.

13 The analogy is clear -- Iraqis poisoned the air

14 and the water in the Gulf region in a deliberate military

15 strategy designed to diminish the fighting capability of

the

16 coalition forces. In common sense terms, no one would

17 voluntarily stand behind an urban mass transit bus

belching

18 diesel fumes for two months, since we know that a

19 significant percentage of those standing behind the bus

are

20 going to get sick.

21 Let me close -- may I have slide 11 -- by

offering

22 our advice for President Clinton. President Clinton

ordered

23 the formation of the advisory committee in March 1995 to

24 provide him with suggested changes in policy, especially

25 those related to chemical warfare agent incidents during

the

196

1 Gulf War. With that in mind, the Gulf War Veterans of

2 Georgia offers a few suggested policy changes.

3 Our first suggestion is that the government

admit

4 chemical and biological warfare agents were present and

5 caused injury during the Gulf War. And I believe with

some

6 of the discussion here about our inability to detect low

7 levels, the admission of the diagnosis of the solder

and

8 whatnot, we have made that step and they are now

coming

9 forward and saying there was some low level. We need

10 little firmer admission and a little more widespread

11 admission.

12 Second, the government needs to protect and

then

13 release chemical and biological incident reports. This

isa

14 free society. If we make a Freedom of Information request

15 on behalf of Gulf veteran groups around the country, we

16 expect a polite response and not an avoidance of the

release

17 of documents.

18 Our third and final suggestion to the President

19 the United States is to increase funding specifically

20 targeted for veterans who are exposed to chemical and

21 biological agents, oilwell fire pollution, depleted

uranium

22 radiation and experimental shots and pills. The

government

23 has done none of these, despite our requests for the last

24 three years for them to do this.

25 Finally, veterans of the Gulf War are citizens

and

197

1 there may be as many as 108,000 of us who may be ill as a

2 result of our service in the Gulf War. As citizens, we

have

3 a right to know the different types of chemical exposures

4 and to receive prompt, thorough medical treatment for our

5 illnesses related to our service in the Gulf War.

6 Thank you.

7 MR. CROSS: Thank you, Mr. Sullivan.

8 Questions from the panel?

9 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: I have just one of Mr.

Sullivan.

10 The seven incidents that you described in your report,

have

11 you given that information to DOD and the other agencies?

12 MR. SULLIVAN: Yes.

13 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: And what has the response

been?

14 MR. SULLIVAN: As I mentioned in my testimony,

15 either didn't happen -- and in fact, they issued one press

16 release that said that Mr. Sullivan misstates the facts,

and

17 all we did was quote right off the logs. That's been

their

18 response. It's been unfortunate, and in a free and open

19 society where we want dialogue it's incumbent upon the

20 government to respond honestly and faithfully. At this

21 point, they only offer denials.

22 DR. CUSTIS: Did you get any definitive reply of

23 any kind at all?

24 MR. SULLIVAN: Yes, sir. We have received

25 replies, and it's in the stack of exhibits that I gave

you,

198

1 and we were specifically denied by Lieutenant General Neal

2 to receive all of the nuclear, biological and chemical

log.

3 According to his aide -- I'm paraphrasing him -- it would

4 a snowball's chance in you know where of us getting the

rest

5 of the log.

6 For the record, we received eleven pages

covering

7 parts of eleven days of an effort that took several

hundred

8 days.

9 DR. CUSTIS: I had the impression that you used

10 Freedom of Information, but did not receive what you were

11 requesting.

12 MR. SULLIVAN: We only got bits and pieces and

13 then when we asked for the follow-up reports, they denied

14 our requests. So we'd get a little bit and then we'd

15 publicize it, the Pentagon would respond by saying we're

16 lying or we're misconstruing the facts, when all we were

17 releasing was what they gave us. And then we would ask

for

18 follow-up reports, and they would refuse to give them to

us.

19 MR. CROSS: Mr. Sullivan, Dr. Charles Jackson

was

20 unable to join us today. Could you please tell us a bit

21 about his diagnosis and treatment of Gulf War veterans?

22 MR. SULLIVAN: Dr. Charles Jackson is at the

23 Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Tuskegee, Alabama, and

24 has seen a great number of veterans who are ill. I have

25 spoken with him on the telephone on several occasions and

199

1 has represented to me that he is of the belief, based on

his

2 evaluation and medical tests, that a significant number of

3 the veterans that he has seen who claim they were exposed,

4 were in fact exposed to some type of chemical agent during

5 the Gulf War. He's done an outstanding job and

6 unfortunately he's going to retire soon. He did say that

7 could go ahead and use the diagnosis that he made of a

8 soldier during the Gulf War -- excuse me, after the Gulf

9 War.

10 Dr. Jackson has done an outstanding job of

trying

11 to get -- reach out to the veteran community and find out

12 what's wrong and he was, according to what he told me,

under

13 considerable pressure to retract diagnoses that he had

made

14 and then to not make any further diagnoses of chemical

15 warfare agent exposure. That's not what we need. If they

16 were exposed to chemicals, we need to get the information

17 out. We don't need people calling and telling him to quit

18 doing what he's doing.

19 MR. TURNER: Mr. Sullivan, if I understand your

20 position correctly, you do not contend, do you, that there

21 was a widespread, direct use, intentional use of chemical

22 warfare agents like mustard or Sarin or other nerve agents

23 against U.S. forces during the Gulf War -- that's not

24 something that your group maintains happened?

25 MR. SULLIVAN: That's correct. We contend there

200

1 was no mass gassing. We contend that there are specific

2 incidents supported not only by eyewitnesses, but by the

3 official record, that there were specific attacks, --

very

4 few of them, but they did take place -- there were

specific

5 cases of mines going off, chemical mines and there were

6 specific cases of incidental exposure, and there were

7 specific cases of low level exposure. So we're not

saying

8 that there's any mass gassing.

9 And I just want to make sure that we're clear

10 this concept. We've got multiple exposure types. We've

got

11 the oilwell fires, we've got low level chemical agents,

12 we've got the experimental shots and pills, we've got

13 depleted uranium. Not only do you have different

variables,

14 you have different degrees of the variable and in

different

15 lengths of time of the variable, and then different

16 combinations of them. You could have one of one and a

17 little of another for differing lengths and different

18 intensities. And this is a very complicated matrix,

and

19 unfortunately the Pentagon and the Department of

Veterans

20 Affairs are insistent on looking for this magic silver

21 bullet single cause. And at no time has any of the Gulf

War

22 veteran groups, to my knowledge, pinned the illnesses on

one

23 specific thing. It's multiple causes at multiple degrees

24 and for differing lengths of time.

25 MR. RIOS: Mr. Sullivan, on your second

201

1 suggestion, you suggest that the President issue an

2 Executive Order to protect and then to release chemical

and

3 biological incident reports. Why did you use the word

4 "protect?"

5 MR. SULLIVAN: Mr. Rios, that's a very good

6 question and I have given the panel a response from

7 Headquarters, United States Army Forces Command, signed

off

8 by an Anthony Stapleton, where he sent us a list of NBC

log

9 locations and the points of contacts for those logs. And

10 some of those it says, quote, "Many routine duty logs,

some

11 may have included nuclear, biological or chemical entries,

12 were destroyed as a matter of routine prior to

13 redeployment." Furthermore, there's others, like 1st

14 Cavalry Division, United States Army, G3, that's

operations,

15 nuclear, biological and chemical records destroyed. Okay?

16 That also leads to a great deal of skepticism

17 among veterans. How can Mr. Koenigsberg and his

associates

18 be doing a thorough job investigating this matter when

19 they're destroying the records?

20 MR. RIOS: So your organization is taking the

21 position that there's the possibility that the government

22 may be presently destroying or might destroy some of

these

23 reports; is that correct?

24 MR. SULLIVAN: Yes. And I don't want to give

25 aura that there is some type of intention to destroy

them.

202

1 I would say that some of it is just pure negligence and

not

2 knowing what they have. A lot of times you get back,

well

3 here's our log from the war, what do we do with it?

Well,

4 it's not worth anything, shred it or throw it away. I

don't

5 believe that there is an intentional effort to destroy the

6 stuff, I want to make sure that the connotation is clear.

7 would be under the impression that most of it is

incidental

8 destruction.

9 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: Are the veterans in your

10 organization -- are they -- I've been hearing that

there'sa

11 lot of discontent with the current VA system of receiving

12 help and that many of the complaints that the veterans

have

13 are not being taken seriously by the medical establishment

14 or the medical staff at the VA systems. What's your

15 experience and what are you hearing from veterans in your

16 organization?

17 MR. SULLIVAN: Chronologically, in '92 and '93,

18 we were going to give the Department of Veterans Affairs a

19 report card, it would be F or D-minus all the way down.

20 They didn't know what was going on, they were overwhelmed

21 with a lot of people coming in who were sick, and they

22 didn't have additional funding to take care of this

23 onslaught of new patients coming in.

24 Since our complaints -- and I also strongly

25 believe as a result of your formation and investigation --

203

1 the Department of Veterans Affairs is giving at the

minimum

2 in some places, lip service, and at the maximum in other

3 places, a good strong look at how they're treating Gulf

War

4 veterans with an eye toward improving it.

5 Overall, for the record, we still believe that

6 there are -- and these are people who talked to me

7 personally and our officers behind me, that they've gone

8 into VA hospitals and been flatly refused to be seen by

9 doctors. Most of the times the doctors aren't aware of

the

10 priority treatment requirement that Congress has placed

11 the VA. So what we do is we call them up and we educate

12 them as to what's going on and please ask that it not

happen

13 again.

14 But it's my assumption that, because we're

getting

15 phone calls that the problem still exists. It is getting

16 better -- it was really bad in '92 and '93. It is getting

17 better and there are some VA employees, and one of them is

18 in the room, his name is Bruce Rooney, he's doing an

19 outstanding job going in doing community outreach, going

20 National Guard units, going to Reserve units to find out

21 what's going on. But his behavior and his enthusiasm

22 unfortunately is the exception and not the rule.

23 MR. CROSS: Okay, thank you Mr.

Sullivan.

24 I'd like to ask James Tuite to come up.

25 MR. TUITE: I'll start off down here.

204

1 We were talking about the destruction of

records

2 earlier -- in just an opening, I've got a response from

the

3 3rd Army.

4 MR. CROSS: Mr. Tuite, can you introduce

yourself

5 and give us a little background synopsis?

6 MR. TUITE: Okay, sure.

7 My name is Jim Tuite, I was the Director of the

8 Senate Banking Committee investigation into this issue.

9 Since that time, I've continued to investigate this

issue.

10 Prior to that, I was a science and technology research

and

11 technology coordinator with the United States Secret

12 Service. I was in the foreign intelligence branch,

13 intelligence officer with them. And I'm a veteran

14 Vietnam. That pretty much gives it in a nutshell. I

havea

15 masters degree from Georgetown in national security

studies

16 and I was working on my doctorate, actually finishing up

17 dissertation in international relations when I was asked

18 start this investigation. I also have a long history of

19 working with both the Office of National Drug Control

Policy

20 and the Department of Defense on science and technology

21 issues.

22 During the war the problem was for the

commanders,

23 and it was a very legitimate problem, how to target Iraqi

24 chemical weapons facilities and deny Iraqi access to the

25 weapons without causing hazardous fallout. That's a

serious

205

1 problem because we all know that the nuclear blasts of the

2 1950s caused global radioactive fallout, and we all have

3 concerns about the industrial pollution from the Midwest

4 causing acid rain and things like that. So somehow, we

had

5 to figure out a way to target facilities housing toxins

that

6 were a thousand times more powerful than the most powerful

7 production pesticides safely and effectively without

killing

8 massive amounts of Iraqis, without hurting our own

soldiers

9 and at the same time deny Iraq use of the weapons.

10 Prior to the war, both the Army and the Air

Force

11 contracted with the national laboratories to do an

12 assessment regarding the nature and extent of the

potential

13 fallout. Those reports remain classified, but I have been

14 told by some people that they were warned that there were

15 serious concerns about the fallout from those facilities.

16 And that information was obtained from liaison staff at

the

17 national laboratories when I was up on Capitol Hill.

18 There was also formal expression of Soviet

19 concerns as soon as the air war started. Their

chemical

20 weapons experts, including the command of their

chemical

21 troops, expressed a very serious concern that the

fallout

22 from these facilities would reach sections of the

Soviet

23 Union and harm Soviet peoples. This is all confirmed in

DOD

24 documents and transactions that have since been

declassified

25 going back and forth between the Soviet government and the

206

1 State Department.

2 We also know, based on a 1994 DOD counter-

3 proliferation report, that there's a serious shortfall in

4 our ability to be able to safely target these facilities,

5 and I'll get into that issue at some point as we go

forward.

6 So the problem that we face is where were the

7 chemical weapons -- we have the known locations, the

places

8 that the intelligence entities were able to identify. But

9 prior to the war, they also observed a great deal of

10 transshipment of the chemical weapons from these

facilities,

11 as observed in some declassified DIA assessments. DIA had

12 assessed that the deployment pattern or the dispersal of

13 these agents was consistent with the deployment pattern

14 during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war. So again, attacking

15 this problem, we have to develop a methodology. The

16 methodology was to observe the wartime data and subsequent

17 findings as though it were a scientific experiment.

18 Out at Dugway, if they want to determine whether

19 or not chemical agents reach to a certain distance, they

put

20 sensors out and then they release some agent or a

stimulant

21 and they find out how far the agents go. And to a certain

22 degree, we can do this in the Gulf. First, you have to

23 identify the locations of the materials involved, the

24 physical properties of the materials involved, method of

25 destruction, sensor activity and the qualities of the

207

1 sensors, the meteorological imagery data that you might

2 able to collect, unidentified variables like we don't

know

3 where all the agents were, animal data and human data.

4 Human data meaning what were the observed illnesses.

5 And so the Department of Defense has been

busily

6 declassifying documents. Now many of these documents

have

7 since been reclassified, some of them have been

reclassified

8 and declassified again. But they identified a number of

9 storage facilities, in many cases up to 12-digit

10 coordinates. So we've got a very good idea as to where

the

11 principal facilities were. These include Mosul airfield,

12 some other airfields, some storage depots and two major

13 facilities at Samara, which was the Iraqis primary

chemical

14 weapons research storage and production facility, and

15 Jabania (ph), which had three facilities, also known as

16 Folusia (ph) -- had three production facilities. Both

17 these facilities were targeted on the 17th, as well as a

18 number of others in An Ayzariyah and some other places.

19 Again, the remainder of the list. And as the committee

20 aware, you've got a detailed report on both the locations

21 these facilities and some of the observations and

comments.

22 So we targeted approximately 28 facilities. We know that.

23 And we know where those facilities were.

24 We also know something about the agents. We

know

25 that sulfur mustard has a flash point of 105 degrees

208

1 Centigrade, which is about the same as number 2 diesel,

from

2 what I understand. We also know that Tabun and

Cycloserine,

3 a GF, are somewhere in the range between kerosene and

number

4 2 diesel.

5 Sarin, on the other hand, is a problem. Sarin

6 doesn't burn. Sarin has similar characteristics in terms

7 evaporation as water. Sarin is mixable with water, Sarin

8 has a cumulative effect, it does not burn. In order to

9 hydrolyze Sarin, you have to heat it in controlled

10 substances -- in controlled environment -- at just below

its

11 boiling point for two to three hours. Another problem

with

12 Sarin is that when Sarin mixes with water and its pH is

13 raised, it is much more persistent than it is at its

14 concentrated levels. Sarin, with a pH of 1.8, has a

15 persistency or half-life of 7-1/2 hours, but at a pH of

16 has a half-life of 47 hours, much longer half-life. Now

17 it's in a much more diluted state at that point, but

we're

18 not talking about acute exposures now, we're talking

about

19 cumulative low-level exposures.

20 So we know that there is problem destroying the

21 agent and I'll tell you again why we know there is a

problem

22 destroying the agent based on some weapons systems that

23 they're trying to develop right now.

24 The DOD estimated downwind threat, and you heard

25 it today, it was about 50 kilometers for one of these

209

1 facilities assuming that there was one metric ton of

2 chemical agent inside the facility. Now we know that when

3 the U.N. went in, they found hundreds of metric tons at

the

4 Folusia (phonetic) and the Samara (phonetic) facilities.

5 This is bulk agent, this isn't weapons, these are just

bulk

6 agent storage. So we now that much more than that which

7 would cause that 50 kilometer downwind footprint was

8 present.

9 We also know, based on FM 3-3 -- and by the way,

10 all the physical properties come from Army Field Manual 3-

11 on the physical properties of these agents. We also know,

12 according to Field Manual 3-3 that just hitting a civilian

13 chemical production facility has a hazardous footprint of

14 about ten kilometers.

15 Now the 50-kilometer figure in FM 3-3 is based

16 a single chemical munition blown up at ground level,

abouta

17 one-ton munition or -- I think they used 900 kilograms as

18 the standard -- has a down-wind footprint of up to 50

19 kilometers. What is the footprint of blowing up an entire

20 facility that's holding at least dozens of metric tons of

21 these substances? Certainly greater than 50 kilometers.

22 The gentleman from SAIC today acknowledged that if there

was

23 more agent, it would be a larger footprint. But there

were

24 no collateral casualties in the area, according to DIA in

25 their declassified reports. This raises the question of

210

1 where did the agent go.

2 We have this rare phenomenon or this rare

problem

3 in physics called the law of conservation of matter and

4 energy. If something can be changed from state to state;

5 for instance, in the case of some of the agents, as they

6 burn they produce highly toxic byproducts. That's why

we've

7 invested billions of dollars in developing controlled

8 incineration facilities. But the Sarin doesn't do

anything

9 but evaporate.

10 The method of destruction. We've had Air Force

11 pilots report that they used incendiary weapons, but in

DOD

12 reports, they say that they used TLAMs or Tomahawks,

13 Tomahawk land attack missiles, submarine or sea-launched

14 cruise missiles were used. Air-to-surface guided

missiles,

15 65-130 and 142, one of those is the Maverick, there are a

16 bunch of heavy-weight guided missiles. Ground guided bomb

17 units, which were the laser and infrared guided bombs, and

18 again, stand-off land attack missiles were available,

19 according to the DOD counter-force working group, as of

20 1994. What was actually used in 1991 I have no clue, but

21 know that that's what's available now.

22 Any of these munitions using high explosives

would

23 result in an incendiary effect because of the low flash

24 points of these substances. In other words, if somebody

25 were to send a Maverick missile into your local gas

station,

211

1 my guess is the gas station probably is going to blow up

and

2 burn, it's not just going to be dispersed to the four

winds.

3 And that's not a guess, that's a fact.

4 DOD is currently trying to develop safe-kill

5 weapons to prevent the fallout inherent in bombing

these

6 facilities. That's an important point and that is not

7 statement. I want to make it very clear that most of

the

8 things that I'm telling you today are the position of

the

9 Department of Defense, not the position of Jim Tuite.

10 In a 1994, again, a counter-proliferation

11 conference held out at Los Alamos, a presentation was

made

12 regarding these kinds of attacks. The purpose of the

13 presentation was to identify the control of hazardous

14 material dispersal and safe chemical and biological

agent

15 defeat is a highest priority shortfall in operational

16 capabilities and to recommend the development of so-

called

17 safe-kill weapons that will minimize collateral effects.

18 The counter-force working group labeled the program as a

19 major concern and concluded agent defeat is a unique

20 counter-force objective. No current capability exists,

21 collateral effects are a major concern.

22 So we're spending tens of millions of dollars

23 right now trying to develop prototypes of these new

weapons

24 systems that will do, at least according to what we've

heard

25 today, something that can already be done.

212

1 Again, what we hypothesize -- and I will say why

2 it's more than a hypothesize -- happened, these facilities

3 were hit, the heat from the burning facilities forced the

4 vapors and gases to rise, not to the lower levels but to

the

5 planetary boundary level into the lower troposphere. Now

6 know this is a real possibility because after the war

7 scientists observed that the smoke from the burning

Kuwaiti

8 oil fires reached altitudes of up to six to seven

kilometers

9 in height and went as far as 2000 kilometers down range.

10 Again, as conditions become favorable, and they

11 did talk about that today, we bombed in the early morning

12 hours when the agent was relatively stable, it went to

13 neutral and as it got down over the troops and became less

14 stable, Sarin and some of the other toxic byproducts which

15 have a higher density than air, fell to the surface.

16 So what kind of sensor activity did we have?

17 Well, we had quite a bit. We had ionization alarms, GC

mass

18 spec, ion mobility spectrometry, flame photometry,

chemical

19 reaction, biochemical or colonestrase reactivity alarms

and

20 wet chemistry. And again, these are the various detectors

21 and devices, all using those techniques that were deployed

22 by the French, the British, the Czechs using Russian and

23 Czech equipment, and the United States. And these are

all,

24 with the exception of the ionization alarm -- the

Department

25 of Defense, again according to their manuals considers the

213

1 M-256, which is our biochemical reactivity kit, a

2 confirmation. So when you look at the Czech, the British

3 and the French alarms, they would all be considered

4 confirmed by our standards in our training manuals, in our

5 field manuals.

6 We also have to look at the satellite data.

What

7 we have provided to the committee is the exact data sets

8 from NOAA satellites that will show certain phenomena that

9 existed during the period. And I've divided the war up

into

10 two periods.

11 We also have to look at what is a harmful

12 exposure. Now I have been a chemical hygiene officer and

13 have had to write a chemical hygiene plan before. And we

14 know there's a difference between what will cause

immediate

15 symptoms and what can be a problem for somebody. We also

16 know that organophosphate chemicals cause flu-like

symptoms

17 and rashes, which were widely reported during the air

war.

18 This is the harmful level in a chronic

exposure,

19 1/10,000th of a milligram per cubic meter and in

sustained

20 exposure, gas masks are required. The first alarm

doesn't

21 go off until you get two orders of magnitude or two and

22 half orders of magnitude higher in exposure. I remind

23 everybody this is a logarithmic, not an arithmetic

chart.

24 If it was arithmetic, it would be going up line that

25 (indicating).

214

1 By the time the M-8A1 alarm goes off in

chronic

2 exposures, you should be in self-contained breathing

3 apparatus. This is how hazardous these agents are. So

when

4 these soldiers talk about the widespread sounding of M-8A1

5 alarms and then going back and getting the M-256

6 confirmations or the MM-1, which even has a higher

threshold

7 than the M-8A1, these are serious exposures to chemical

8 agents -- not in terms of the acute threat of impairing

the

9 military mission, but in terms of the health of the

10 individual exposed. This data is all from the U.S. Army's

11 material safety data sheets for its personnel at Aberdeen

12 Proving Ground and from Field Manual 3-9, which indicates

13 what the harmful exposures to these substances are, both

14 chronic and acute exposures.

15 Another sensor we had out there -- animal

deaths.

16 Sudden massive, cross-species and cross-family die-offs

are

17 not consistent with any naturally-occurring biological

18 veterinary epidemic. But they are consistent with

19 toxicological or chemical agent exposures.

20 The human exposures issues. Again, chronic

21 cumulative exposures to chemical nerve agents and

toxic

22 byproducts cause flu-like symptoms, rashes and

chronic

23 illnesses similar to those reported by the veterans.

Pick

24 up any pesticide and see what it warns you against. The

25 organophosphate pesticides like malathion -- see what it

215

1 warns you against, what you should look for. It says if

you

2 see flu-like symptoms and rashes, immediately seek medical

3 assistance.

4 PB was effective against Soman or GD, but may

have

5 made troops more vulnerable to Sarin, GB or VX. That's

6 obviously an important issue because, you know, our troops

7 may have been more sensitive because of taking the

8 pyridostmine. It's also -- this, by the way, comes from a

9 DOD study from back in I believe 1988. It's referenced in

10 the report and it is an animal model study, not a human

11 model study. I want to make that clear because we don't

12 out and expose our troops to Sarin and VX just to find out

13 how the pyridostigmines work.

14 The recently released Jamal (ph) study, which

was

15 a peer-reviewed, scientific study, shows that 100 percent,

16 or 14 out of 14 of randomly selected sick British vets

17 showed signs of peripheral nervous system damage or

18 disorders similar to those seen in patients exposed to

19 organophosphate poisons; for example, the chemical nerve

20 agents.

21 And then the study done by -- the recent

testimony

22 of Dr. Ernovitz (ph) showing the inability of the body of

23 soldiers who are sick to develop antibodies to polio type

24 and type III shows some immunologic anomaly.

25 Again, going back to the satellite data, because

216

1 I'm not going to show you a cartoon of what might have

2 happened during the Gulf War, I'm going to show you the

3 photographs, what really happened during the Gulf War.

And

4 again, you guys are welcome to go down to NOAA and I'll

have

5 the photos and the -- I've got the data, I've got to get

6 processed, but I do have some printouts of the photos for

7 today.

8 MR. CROSS: Mr. Tuite, can we -- five minutes?

9 MR. TUITE: Yeah, I think I'm there.

10 Again, what we're looking at is detections here.

11 These were detections that occurred in the first seven

days

12 of the air war. They all involve wet chemistry,

biochemical

13 reactivity, ionization in biochemical reactivities, ion

14 mobility spectrometry -- they all involve something

other

15 than the M-8A1 alarm going off. And there is a massive

16 number of detections that occurred in this very short

period

17 of time.

18 What was the phenomena we saw? Again, no

19 cartoon -- the 18th of January there is a front that's

20 developed right over where the troops are -- and I

apologize

21 for not being able to see the ground, but the Sinai is up

22 there, the lakes by Baghdad are up there, the troops are

23 under here. And I -- I'll get you more resolved

24 photographs. That front is there and it stays there on

the

25 18th, the 19th, the 20th, the 21st, the 23rd. What was

217

1 happening is there was a low pressure system up north,

which

2 explains why you were seeing the tails on the ground winds

3 going this way up top, and there was a high pressure

system

4 over the Indian Ocean which was going clockwise, which was

5 showing the arrows going this way (indicating).

6 Unfortunately, all of the material was being held on the

7 front. Now according to the Air Force Gulf War

weather

8 report, there was low fog which would come and go

every

9 morning, and the chemical agent detections occurred just

10 the fog cleared. Again, you've got to remember Sarin is

11 mixable with water, about five times heavier than air.

12 as the conditions for evaporation improve, the Sarin

drops

13 to the ground, the alarm go off, the soldiers get flu-

14 symptoms and rashes.

15 Again, during the second phase that we were

16 talking about, you can see the plumes. There is a plume

17 coming down from the lake below Baghdad or next to

Baghdad.

18 Again, we're looking at a two-pronged plume right here

19 coming down alongside those lakes by Baghdad. This was in

20 an area where a lot of the chemical weapons facilities

were.

21 Again, you see in this Mediasat satellite

22 photograph, agent coming down from the area up by the

lakes

23 and down towards where the troops are.

24 Again, burning debris -- in this case in Kuwait

25 coming down towards the troops.

218

1 The one single exception we have in all of these

2 photographs -- and there are a total of 42 of them in the

3 final set that I'll get to the committee -- was on the day

4 the ground war started. On that day, the upper

atmospheric

5 debris was going to the west. Every other day during the

6 war, the smoke plumes show that the debris from the

7 bombings, from the visible -- the visible debris from the

8 bombings, and therefore the invisible debris from the

9 bombings, was coming towards our troops.

10 Again, the period 1/17 to the 24th, stationary

11 front over the area were the troops are deployed, marked

12 periods of recurring fog and light rain, many highly

13 reliable chemical warfare agent detections. Period two,

14 January 24th to February 28th, consistent visible

15 atmospheric fallout moving to the south-southeast

directly

16 towards areas occupied by coalition forces.

17 Many of these chemical agent detections you

heard

18 about from Paul Sullivan today, but I was asked to

discuss

19 them as well. One of the things that they didn't discuss

20 today was that Mr. Fisher, who got the chemical agent

burn,

21 reports that there were materials inside the bunker

marked

22 with skull and crossbones. Well, there were several

23 declassified DIA reports that indicate that that's how

Iraq

24 marked the chemical weapons. Yet, there's no evidence

that

25 there were any chemical weapons forward deployed,

according

219

1 to the same analysis.

2 Well, somehow this incidental exposure came

from

3 something that was marked exactly like what should have

been

4 in those crates, to give him those burns. They were

marked

5 with skulls and crossbones. There are at least -- my

guess

6 is about 15 reports of similar incidences, both in Iraq

and

7 Kuwait, in this report that you can take a look at,

8 including others where the containers or the weapons were

9 marked with skulls and crossbones.

10 This is something that we need to say, and there

11 were intelligence issues involved during the war -- first

12 all, the 513th MI Brigade was brought in just after the

air

13 war began as the final arbiter of chemical confirmations.

14 Then we saw that the reports in soldiers' medical records

15 began to be missing from 1992 to 1996. Czech soldiers

16 reportedly intimidated by DIA officials sent to

evaluate

17 reports of the Czech detections. Board member of

major

18 supplier of pathogens to Iraq's biological warfare

program

19 was named to head the Defense advisory board's inquiry.

20 Secretary of the Department of Defense, VA and HHS tell

21 Congress there is no classified information in a

memorandum

22 written on May 4, 1994. And DOD denied to the committee

the

23 existence of the SINCOM CCJ-3 X-ray or NBC log. U.S.

24 soldiers were intimidated during our investigation by DOD

25 and Defense science board investigators regarding reported

220

1 detections. And then DOD ordered the declassification of

2 the non-existent classified information in June of 1994.

3 DIA reported that the Defense science board concealed the

4 massive nature of the bombing of Iraq's chemical warfare

5 agent facilities in the critical January 14 to January

6 period. In fact, they moved some of the bombings that

7 occurred on the 17th to the 1st of February, in their

8 report.

9 Went up to NSA and there were large gaps in the

10 SIG ENT critic spot and other intelligence reporting,

11 including documents already known to exist by the

committee.

12 November of '94.

13 Then the SINCOM NBC log, again a non-existent

log,

14 was declassified, or partially declassified. DOD

continues

15 to declassify the entire document. The DCI refused to

deny

16 in a 60 Minutes presentation that the troops were exposed

17 chemical warfare agents, would only say that there was no

18 evidence of widespread intentional use in March of '95.

19 DOD begins placing formerly classified

information

20 -- again, the non-existent classified information --

21 regarding this issue on the Internet. The National

Security

22 Council issues press guidance to DOD, VA, HHS, White House

23 and Office of Science and Technology Policy on how to

handle

24 press inquiries on this issue, and DOD issues a "do not

25 release" document regarding detections. Then DOD removed

221

1 intelligence files from the Internet due to a lack of

2 coordination between DOD and CIA on what information is

3 releasable. Anyone who wanted that information had

already

4 had it.

5 The bottom line is all of the evidence out

there

6 points to one observation. The troops were exposed to

7 chemical agents, both in their symptoms, in what happened

8 during the war, in the nature of the detections that

9 occurred, in the death of the animals, in the programs

that

10 are currently underway to identify and develop new

systems

11 to do what we say we could already do.

12 MR. CROSS: We want to get into questions now

13 because I think we've got a few. Thank you -- lights.

14 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: Mr. Tuite, in the Jamal study

15 you mentioned -- this is an English study where 14 out of

16 --

17 MR. TUITE: Yes.

18 MS. TAYLOR: -- persons investigated showed

19 symptoms of peripheral nerve damage. Was there a specific

20 chemical warfare agent identified in that study?

21 MR. TUITE: No. The physician, Dr. Gran Jamal

22 an expert on fatigue syndrome and organophosphate

pesticide

23 poisoning. All he would say was that the symptoms that he

24 saw in the veterans that he tested were consistent with

25 organophosphate-type exposure similar to what he had seen

222

1 other kinds of organophosphate poisoning cases.

2 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: And you also mentioned Sarin

has

3 been one of the principal agents. But the others could

have

4 been as well?

5 MR. TUITE: Sarin is an unusual problem because

6 Sarin doesn't burn. We would expect most of these

compounds

7 when they get hit by a weapon that would cause it to reach

8 its flash point to break down at least into its

byproducts.

9 Now those byproducts are toxic as well, and some of them

are

10 neuro-toxic, but they're not nearly as toxic as Sarin

vapor

11 might be if it were released into the atmosphere sort of

12 freely. And again, you know, the increased half-life,

once

13 this gets up into the vapor levels of the atmosphere,

14 indicates that it could have gotten very far, especially

15 given the weather conditions and again could have caused

16 likely caused many of those detections.

17 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: And your perception of -- I've

18 heard basically the CIA report that we had previously

19 stating the direction of the wind is different from what

20 you're saying.

21 MR. TUITE: Yes. What I'm saying -- he said

that

22 he didn't believe that it could have gotten up any further

23 than 40 kilometers, but I've got some handouts which are

24 appendix in the report that I gave you which says that the

25 Defense Nuclear Agency now is very concerned about looking

223

1 at the movement of these agents in the planetary boundary

2 layer, or above that 50 kilometer or 100 kilometer

distance,

3 and they are trying to develop models right now to analyze

4 the dispersion of agents in that layer.

5 The interesting thing is that there's only one

6 other adversary that would have the possible consequence

7 targeting their chemical weapons facilities that Iraq had

8 and that would be the Soviet or Russia, the former Soviet

9 states. The interesting thing about Iraq is that that's

10 pretty much the maximum target where we're going to have

11 control of the air, unrestricted access to bombing the

12 facilities. So if it wasn't as a result of our experience

13 there, if the fallout and the need to examine the fallout

14 those layers aren't as a result of a real lessons learned,

15 if you will, then they're doing this for no reason at all.

16 I mean this is what this is about, we had some serious

17 shortfalls.

18 Now don't get me wrong, I'm not critical of the

19 Department of Defense at all, they had no alternative.

The

20 alternative was to have the weapons used against the

troops.

21 But I am critical in that denying that these low level

22 exposures are hazardous and by denying that when the

alarms

23 went off it was real, they have undermined our forces'

24 confidence in their leadership, in their chemical weapons

25 gear, in their chemical weapons detectors and, quite

224

1 frankly, a whole doctrinal review needs to be conducted

2 because there are problems attendant you that, as I

believe

3 you work in industrial hygiene -- there are serious

problems

4 attendant in chronic or what we would consider

occupational

5 level exposures to these substances.

6 MR. RIOS: Let me ask you, you said that there

7 now a priority on behalf of the military to develop safe

8 bombs, is that what you --

9 MR. TUITE: I don't say that, they say that,

yes.

10 MR. RIOS: They admitted that there is a

priority

11 in developing safe bombs.

12 MR. TUITE: That will kill these facilities with

13 no collateral effects, yes.

14 MR. RIOS: And that is a priority now, or is a

15 priority that became a priority since the Gulf War, is

that

16 correct?

17 MR. TUITE: It is a priority of the defense

18 counter-proliferation initiative that began in

approximately

19 late 1993 to 1994, yes, since the Gulf War.

20 MR. RIOS: Would it be fair to say that this is

21 priority that has loomed because of the experience of the

22 Gulf War veterans and the problems that they've been

23 complaining about over the past few years?

24 MR. TUITE: There's no question. We spend

25 billions of dollars to develop safe incineration

facilities

225

1 for chemical agents that we no longer want in our

2 stockpiles, and we're spending tens of millions, and

3 ultimately when they go into production probably hundreds

4 millions and billions of dollars to develop these kinds of

5 weapons so that we can safely kill these munitions.

There's

6 no doubt that the threat is real and that what happened or

7 what I suggest happened today happened, because they would

8 not be putting, in an age of limited resources, that much

9 an emphasis on the safe disposal of these munitions. I

mean

10 if it's so safe to blow these things up, then why don't we

11 just put them all in Utah instead of building the

12 incineration facilities, and bomb them?

13 MR. TURNER: If I understand your testimony

right,

14 Mr. Tuite, you're suggesting that whether by incendiaries

15 by conventional high explosive bombing of Iraqi chemical

16 warfare agent storage sites, Sarin in particular was

ejected

17 high into the atmosphere and fell over our troops at a

later

18 date. Is that a fair summary of what your position is?

19 MR. TUITE: It's a fair summary, but it wasn't

20 ejected. It was turned into the vapor state and moved

down

21 with other vapor like the water vapor in the clouds into

22 that layer of clouds that I showed you in the satellite

23 photograph and then as the ground -- the gentleman

this

24 morning showed you that during the late night or early

25 morning hours that conditions are very stable for

these

226

1 chemical agents. That was the time of day we bombed

them.

2 Then they go into the neutral phase, and then they go

into

3 the unstable phase. So what you have to calculate is how

4 far could an agent move in the upper atmospheric winds or

5 the upper planetary boundary layer or lower troposphere

and

6 where would it come down and how much of it would come

down

7 in a given day or two days, since we know that there were

8 more -- since we know that the half-life as it got mixed

9 with the water would increase.

10 MR. KIDD TURNER: Just so I understand the

11 mechanism for getting the agent from the ground up high,

12 a high explosive bombing, that would be other chemical

13 agents like Soman, Tabun -- the flammable ones would

ignite

14 and lift the Sarin higher into the atmosphere, is that --

15 MR. TUITE: Right, it's basically the second

law

16 of thermodynamics. We all know that hot air rises, we

all

17 know that steam rises. What happens is the cold air

18 surrounding the hotter air rushes into the bottom and it

19 forms this cone-like effect forcing the gases higher and

20 higher. We see it in nuclear -- you've seen a mushroom

21 cloud from a nuclear blast, or if you've ever seen a

bunker

22 blow up and it goes straight up and then out, or if you've

23 ever seen napalm, it causes that same kind of effect, what

24 they call a columnar effect. If you hit a complex very

hard

25 with napalm, it just keeps circling up.

227

1 MR. TURNER: How far do you think that agents

2 would have been spread through this mechanism? Sarin in

3 particular, can you give us some kind of idea?

4 MR. TUITE: Right now that's hard to tell. All

5 can say based on the information we have is that the

sensor

6 data indicates that it at least progressed throughout the

7 area where the troops were deployed. Could it have gone

8 farther than that? Absolutely.

9 MR. TURNER: So you're basing your conclusion

that

10 it went that far on the alarms and verifications of

alarms.

11 MR. TUITE: And on the location of the

12 meteorological phenomena. And on the movement of other

13 toxic debris and other pollutants that --

14 MR. TURNER: From the oilwell fires, is that

what

15 you're saying?

16 MR. TUITE: From the bombings and the oilwell

17 fires.

18 MR. TURNER: Now, you're neither a physician

nora

19 meteorologist. Have you currently consulted with someone

20 are you planning to consult with someone to review the

work

21 that you've done to date?

22 MR. TUITE: During the committee investigation,

23 got information from the U.S. Air Force environmental --

24 ETAC out in Scott Air Force Base, Illinois. I am now

25 working with a satellite corporation that's going to do

228

1 collages and evaluate the data for me, yes.

2 MR. TURNER: When do you expect to have that

3 effort at a point where we might want to ask you to share

4 with us?

5 MR. TUITE: Probably within three or four weeks.

6 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: I have one question. I'm just

7 looking and I've looked at this earlier, the material

safety

8 data sheet on Sarin, and the permissible exposure limit

9 .001 milligrams per cubic meter.

10 MR. TUITE: .0001, yes.

11 MS. TAYLOR: Right.

12 MR. TUITE: 1/10,000th of milligram per cubic

13 meter.

14 MS. TAYLOR: Right. So the question I'm asking

15 did we have any detection equipment that could detect

levels

16 at that particular level?

17 MR. TUITE: Oh, absolutely not. In fact, the

18 detectors that we had going off were detecting agent at

1000

19 times that level. And some of the detections that you

were

20 looking at today would have been 10,000, even 100,000

times

21 that level. And again, the troops were told, because

these

22 alarms were all going off, that it wasn't enough to hurt

23 you, don't worry about it, take the batteries out of the

24 alarms. Because our doctrine specifically says that the

25 effects of these chemical agents are acute, immediate and

229

1 severely debilitating. And they are at militarily

2 significant levels but they're not at levels that will

cause

3 serious physical injury to the individuals exposed.

4 Again, we're looking at two different things

here,

5 we're looking at what might have impaired the military

6 mission in the Persian Gulf War and we're looking at what

7 might have impaired the health of our veterans and their

8 families.

9 They are two very different issues. They

weren't

10 looked at as -- you know, the war wasn't going to go on

for

11 20 years, they weren't worried about 20-year exposures.

The

12 problem is that they were getting fairly high exposures

for

13 an occupational setting and instead of, as they would be

14 required to in an occupational setting, wear the

protective

15 gear, they were told to ignore the alarms.

16 We know that the French exercised fairly decent

17 mop discipline, both because of the quality of their

18 detectors and because they weren't taking the nerve agent

19 pre-treatment pills. And we have very few reports of

French

20 sickness. Now we don't know whether that's because of the

21 pills or because they exercised mop discipline because

they

22 weren't taking the pills. But we do know that there are

23 those reports.

24 So, you know, it's a serious -- my concern in

this

25 issue is not as it relates to veterans, it's as they

relate

230

1 to the soldiers that are still in uniform, that as we go

out

2 there and we have this schizophrenic two-fold standard as

3 how we treat what is safe and what isn't safe and what is

4 effective and what isn't effective, we have systematically

5 undermined our troops' confidence in the abilities of

their

6 commanders to tell them the truth. We need to get

through

7 that. We also need to try and help the soldiers that are

8 sick now. But my worst case scenario is that the next

time

9 these alarms go off, they're not going to be chronic

levels,

10 they're going to be acute levels, the troops are going to

11 ignore the alarms and they're going to die.

12 They have done, in terms of managing the

13 information, all the wrong things. When those alarms went

14 off, whether they were accidental or not, they should have

15 been in mop gear and they should not have been told to

16 ignore them over time. That was the policy that, you

know,

17 many governments took, and it's interesting that the

18 governments that took -- for instance, the French took

that

19 policy -- they're not nearly as sick as our soldiers are.

20 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: I have just one more question,

21 I'm sorry.

22 Similar to what happens in a workplace setting,

23 you foresee over the years -- I guess I can probably

answer

24 that myself -- do you foresee over the years that many

25 veterans will become ill as a result of their exposure

231

1 because it usually happens over a long period of time

2 because it was such a low level?

3 MR. TUITE: Yeah. There are two issues here.

Not

4 only with the chemical agents now, but if you're talking

5 about long-term chronic exposures, you also have to look

6 the problems with the depleted uranium. The radioactive

7 dust takes a long time to start manifesting its symptoms,

8 but it has very similar symptoms. In fact, these toxins

are

9 said to have radiomimetic effects. I mean, I do see this

10 be a growing problem. Those individuals who happen to be

11 areas where, you know, they may be exposed more than other

12 individuals to other kinds of toxins or where their health

13 isn't -- where they're not just as concerned about their

14 health, I think you're going to see more and more soldiers

15 get sick, soldiers who aren't sick now, or soldiers who

are

16 managing their illness now.

17 We know of -- we were contacted by many, many

18 soldiers on active duty who were afraid to come forward,

and

19 we continue to receive reports about pilots who were sick,

20 people in our special operations unit who were sick. This

21 becomes very frightening because it becomes a readiness

22 issue as well.

23 MS. KIDD TAYLOR: What recommendation can the

24 committee make then to the President, since our committee

25 will end in December, of what should be done to assist

these

232

1 veterans who may become ill or the ones who are sick now?

2 MR. TUITE: I think, first of all, they need a

3 complete independent, by people like yourselves,

independent

4 hygienists, a bottoms up review of our chemical,

biological

5 warfare defense program. It is designed to combat

6 biological and chemical warfare of the World War II

7 generation, it is not designed to deal with the problems

8 inherent in high tech society and in the modern

battlefield,

9 and with modern chemical and biological warfare tactics.

10 The second issue is they need to admit that

there

11 is a high degree of probability or likelihood that the

12 troops were exposed in a widespread way to low level

13 chemical agents and that their illnesses may be as a

result

14 of those exposures, and that there may have been a few

15 limited acute exposures. That's not inconsistent with the

16 no widespread intentional use statement, but it is

certainly

17 a very different statement.

18 And then the last thing is just a personal note,

19 is that the whole issue with the children. Unlike most

20 people, if something happens to my child, I've got

21 insurance, and my child can be cared for. Certainly, I'm

22 going to be grief-stricken and emotionally distraught over

23 the fact that my child is not perfect, but you have the

24 issue of soldiers who are on active duty having deformed

25 children born to them. Then, because they're sick, they

get

233

1 kicked out of the military for one reason or another, and

2 the children can't get insurance, it's a pre-existing

3 condition. No medical carrier is going to pick them up.

4 Even if the soldier gets a job where he has health care,

5 he's not going to be health care for that child because

the

6 health care carrier is going to say, this is a

catastrophic

7 illness, we can't afford it.

8 So I think that if the Department of Defense's

9 assertion that there aren't that many of those birth

defects

10 out there, and since we do it in most cases where there's

11 indigency involved with Medicaid, that some provision

should

12 be made to take care of these children until we can get

toa

13 point where we know what happened during this war. I

think

14 that, you know, as I said earlier today, the satellite

15 photographs say that the people who were talking to you

16 earlier today weren't telling you the whole story. And

the

17 plumes say that -- you know, you don't have debris from

18 visible bombings going one way and the debris from the

Sarin

19 going the other way. And you don't have the absence of

20 collateral -- the footprint that he showed you on where

that

21 Sarin would have went was right across the Euphrates

River.

22 Now the population in most of these desert countries is

23 clustered along their water sources. We would have

wiped

24 out tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of people if that

25 footprint was accurate. We saw the absence of the

234

1 phenomena.

2 So the evidence is just overwhelming that we

need

3 to do something to revise the doctrine, to take this

issue

4 seriously, to not let the people who investigated it

during

5 the war investigate it now, and to take care of the

people

6 who have been affected by it until we can resolve the

7 situation.

8 MR. BROWN: I just have a quick question or

two.

9 It seems as I read your testimony that part of your basis

10 for saying that there was exposure of U.S. troops is that

11 the symptoms that some of our troops showed then and I

guess

12 today are consistent with low level exposure to

13 organophosphorus agents.

14 MR. TUITE: Uh-huh.

15 MR. BROWN: And I'm wondering if you could

supply

16 us with some of the references that make that connection.

17 It struck me that rashes and flu-like symptoms are not the

18 classic symptoms from OP poisoning. We heard from some of

19 the other people testifying about what happened when they

20 were exposed to high levels of organophosphorus agents,

and

21 so we're wondering about the low level issue and how you

22 make that connection.

23 MR. TUITE: I actually have a farm in southern

24 Virginia and there's an agricultural extension office down

25 there, and they pass out little flyers from the various

235

1 manufacturers and I recently got one from Rhone-Poulenc,

2 which is a manufacturer of agricultural pesticides and

3 there it shows even the pictures of -- you know, sort

4 safety pictures, the drawings. And it talks about if

you

5 experience rashes or flu-like symptoms, immediately

seek

6 medical assistance. And I will get you the flyers or

you

7 can contact Rhone-Poulenc and ask them what their

medical

8 basis for that is.

9 MR. BROWN: But I assume that would be an

acute

10 effect, an immediate effect from poisoning, not

something

11 that would necessarily appear --

12 MR. TUITE: No, it's not a classic acute affect

13 it is an acute affect; yes, you're right. But it is not

the

14 myosis, the runny nose, it is not the -- it's the result

15 exposure over time, not a point exposure.

16 The other thing I didn't point out about the

17 detector capabilities is that the detector capabilities

are

18 detections of certain levels over a very short period

19 ranging from 30 seconds to 16 to 19 minutes. That

20 1/10,000th of a milligram per cubic meter number that we

21 were looking at was an eight-hour total weight average.

22 there's a very -- I mean it would be -- I tried to do this

23 on an arithmetic curve and you just couldn't show the data

24 that you needed to show because the harmful level was just

25 down at zero and then, you know, you just couldn't show

what

236

1 you were trying to show and it was off the chart.

2 MR. BROWN: Just one other quick question --

3 MR. TUITE: I'm sorry -- but there's also

4 literature on organophosphate induced delayed neuropathy

5 that --

6 MR. BROWN: I know, I've seen that literature,

but

7 it's not at low levels, as far as I know, but you can --

8 MR. TUITE: It's occupational levels.

9 MR. BROWN: -- point us to that.

10 MR. TUITE: Yes.

11 MR. BROWN: The other question I have is the

same

12 question basically that I asked Mr. McNally, you know,

these

13 kind of atmospheric modelings are based on a lot of

14 assumptions and a lot of situations where you don't know

the

15 exact answer to the data. How important is the issue that

16 the lack of flammability, the lack of burnability of Sarin

17 to your modeling?

18 The reason I asked is I was kind of curious

about

19 that. I've looked at the Chem-D-Mil program before and

I've

20 seen -- it seems to me if you look at other sources,

21 occupational safety and health data, a couple of National

22 Academy studies that look at our domestic program to get

rid

23 of chemical weapons, that Sarin is not -- I haven't seen

24 that effect listed. In fact, Sarin, is listed as being

25 flammable, a flammable agent. So I'm just wondering how

237

1 important that would be.

2 MR. TUITE: Sarin is hydrolyzed by heating it at

3 150 degrees, which is just --

4 MR. BROWN: So we're talking about incineration,

5 not hydrolyzation.

6 MR. TUITE: No, I understand that. You're

talking

7 about Chem-D-Mil too, aren't you?

8 MR. BROWN: Uh-huh.

9 MR. TUITE: In Chem-D-Mil, they hydrolyze it by

10 heating it at just below its boiling point and at that

point

11 it dissolves into polymers and hydrofluoric acid.

12 MR. BROWN: When it combusts, it turns into --

13 that would be true if you were trying to hydrolyze it, but

14 the Chem-D-Mil program is an incineration based program,

15 it's not a hydrolysis based program.

16 I guess my real question is how sensitive is

your

17 model to that -- if it turned out Sarin burned pretty

well,

18 would that change your --

19 MR. TUITE: Well, again, the military data from

20 3-9 and from other books that I've looked at on this issue

21 indicate that it doesn't burn. Now it might incinerate at

22 2000 degrees. Certainly there's probably a level to which

23 you can say that water might incinerate, but for practical

24 purposes being burned in the open, I don't know of any

25 incineration program where they're suggesting that we

should

238

1 take our chemical weapons, put them out in the field out

2 Dugway and set a match to them. And certainly --

3 MR. BROWN: No, but --

4 MR. TUITE: I'm serious, if you're looking at

what

5 was detected, we were looking at nerve agents being

6 detected. If we're looking at how they were being

7 destroyed, they were being destroyed by high explosives.

8 Explosion is just a rapid ignition of material, which

means

9 it's rapid combustion, whether it's a high -- low

explosive

10 is rapid combustion, high explosion is very rapid

combustion

11 that's strong enough to cause shock waves.

12 MR. BROWN: But my point is it would combust

under

13 certain conditions. You mentioned 2000 degrees, I imagine

14 it would probably get to 2000 degrees inside of a bunker.

15 mean, just as an example, in an OSHA MSDS for this

material,

16 they talk about -- they say specifically that it may burn

17 but does not ignite readily. But that containers may

18 explode in the heat of fire. My question just really is

how

19 important is that issue in your overall model? Is it

going

20 to change it tremendously --

21 MR. TUITE: You mean if it burns at very high

22 temperatures? No.

23 MR. BROWN: If it burns at temperatures inside

24 a bunker, for instance, where --

25 MR. TUITE: Well, what kind of temperatures are

239

1 you looking at? Are you looking at -- I mean, this is

2 significant. If you're looking at flames, 400-500

degrees,

3 does it burn?

4 MR. BROWN: Yeah, I think the answer is it

5 probably does. I'm just wondering if --

6 MR. TUITE: I think the answer is it probably

7 doesn't.

8 MR. BROWN: Okay, we can talk about that later.

9 MR. TUITE: I mean, it doesn't -- did you have

10 data on what temperature it burns?

11 MR. BROWN: Not specific temperatures, no.

12 MR. TUITE: It doesn't even say it does burn, it

13 says it may burn, right?

14 MR. BROWN: But it also says it explodes in

heat.

15 So I mean --

16 MR. TUITE: Well again, if you were to heat up

the

17 bunker and this thing exploded and you've already got the

18 heat there, what's going to happen to the vapor if it

19 doesn't readily burn?

20 MR. BROWN: My question is just this, how

21 important is that feature to your overall model? Is it

22 crucial that it not burn for your model to --

23 MR. TUITE: No. I mean if you're saying that

this

24 stuff in container -- in a container would burn, all

you're

25 doing is heating the substance up, it's changing from the

240

1 liquid to the vapor state and it's being pushed up by the

2 flames anyway. I mean, you're not getting the full

3 incineration as you --

4 MR. BROWN: Thank you very much. That's all.

5 MR. CROSS: Mark, your technical mind is getting

6 out of control. I know it's late. Let me reel it back

in.

7 My point that I'm walking away from this is if

you

8 bomb something, it's going to create a smoke cloud and

what

9 you showed me, smoke clouds were drifting southeast --

10 MR. TUITE: Right to the troops.

11 MR. CROSS: -- across troop concentrations.

Aside

12 from what burned at what level or what temperature, that

was

13 the important thing I think we need to get away from this.

14 What I'd like to do is wrap up our meeting for

15 today. It is getting late, some of us have planes to

jump

16 back onto.

17 But again, I want to thank everybody who was

here.

18 I know some people couldn't stay to the end but thank all

19 you that were able to last throughout the day. Once

again,

20 the term Southern Hospitality holds true, I think the