DRAMATIC REVERSAL ON GULF WAR ILLNESS
Iraqi chemical weapons may well be responsible, panelist now think
New York Times
WASHINTON-Nearly half the members of a special White House committee on the illnesses of
gulf war veterans say they will urge that the panel reverse itself and conclude that Iraqi
chemical weapons may be an important factor in the veterans' health problem.
Their views suggest a dramatic turnaround in the final report by the panel, whch said in
an interium report to President Clinton in January that chemical weapons were
"unlikely" to be the cause of the illnesses reported by thousands of veterans of
the Persian Gulf War. The committee instead singled out wartime stress as a likely cause
of the ailments.
In interviews, five of the 11 members of the panel, the Presidential Advisory Committee on
Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses, said they were impressed by new evidence showing that clouds
of gases from chemical weapons might have traveled much farther across the battlefield
than previously reported by the Defense Department.
A Pentagon report isssued last month estimated that nerve gas wafted over as many as
98,000 troops-one of every seven Americans who served in the region-from the demolition of
the Kamisiyah ammunition depot in southern Iraq in March 1991, shortly after the war. Some
of the panel members said they also were intriged by studies, published last January in
The Journal of the American medical Association, in which University of Texas researchers
said the illness of gulf war veterans appeared to be the result of exposure to a
combination of chemicals, including nerve gas.
The six other members of the White House panel either did not return calls or referred the
calls to the committee. At least some of these members are expected to stand behind the
earlier conclusion that chemical weapons are unlikely to be the cause of illnesses among
the veterans.