UNCENSORED! Veterans Sound Off on Gulf War Illness

The response to our exclusive story here last week on Gulf War Illness has been overwhelming. As I reported, two new scientific studies confirm that the mysterious illness that has afflicted more than 250,000 American service members was largely the result of weather patterns which, after the U.S. bombing of Iraqi chemical weapon storage facilities, carried a massive toxic chemical cloud a very long distance before these chemicals fell on U.S. troops.

As I wrote last week, this is being dubbed by some as the largest example of "friendly fire" in American history, because the so-called nerve and blister agents that dropped on our troops were supplied to Iraq by the U.S. before the Gulf War. 

Since the story ran, I've heard from hundreds of veterans. Here are just some of the responses I've gotten from the blog, in emails and text messages, on my social media pages, and in telephone conversations:

* I sit here in somewhat of a state of shock and I don't know why, this should not be a surprise to us. We knew when those alarms were going off, multiple locations at same time, it was more than just 'bad batteries', etc. Once again our gov't has let us down, it seems to happen to every Era of Vets. Yes people need to be held accountable for any cover-up, etc. but more than anything, we HAVE to stand by our comrades and fight for them, and us, so those affected are taken care of in an appropriate and respectful manner. Enough of the calling us liars or claiming no proof, its time to do whats right for our Gulf War Vets. 

1. * Where are our Generals and Commanding Officers? Why do they continue to remain silent on this issue? Semper Fi??? I'm not so sure that means much to these moral cowards anymore.

   
   * You guy's are going thru the same thing the Vietnam vets have gone thru with Agent orange..Same Kind of treatment from the VA, the Government, and the chemical manufacturers.. You will probably have to wait another 10 or 15 years before anybody admits to anything, or getting any help from the VA...sorry to say that, but it starts all over again..And it's B.S.
   

   
   * I was in the Gulf War and was exposed to these chemicals. When I came home a VA doctor told me my health problems were in my head. He said they were psychological and passed me on to a shrink. 
   
   * I've read your coverage of veterans for the last decade. Thanks for caring about us. This story about the longtime coverup of Gulf War Syndrome should be front page news in every newspaper in the country. 
   
   * The info has been declassified on how our government continued to send Iraq chemicals and weapons of mass destruction up till 1992 while we were in the Gulf War which was 1990/1991. Also consider that there are many sick and have died that never deployed who received the shots to prepare to deploy, but never left the US.
   
   * The only time any politician in any party cares about the troops is when they can be used in a high-profile photo-op. And don't even think about prying any money loose from the tentacles of the octopus. The monster needs every dime it can get to make sure more Americans come home damaged.
   
   
   * The U.S. government owes disabled vets compensation for 20 years of neglect and suffering. And a criminal investigation is in order for whoever was responsible for the 20-year delay. Many knew at the time the chemical weapons were responsible, and tests would reveal it, BUT SOMEONE COVERED IT UP.
   
   
   * Those of us that came after the war for occupation and clean up had Camp Doha, Kuwait go up in flames and explosions. These set off the melting of tanks that had depeleted armor attached. I was the FASCO S-3 ordered by BG Whaley to evacuate the 11th ACR's damaged equipment. To over see it I had to be on scene. I photographed QAASES (Kwases) personnel using Geiger counters and 11th ACR Service Company men welding depleted uranium back on to the M1-A1's for transport. CBS 60 Minutes did a piece on this some years ago. The govt denied anyone handled the DU. I called the Jackson State proffessor the next day. I sent him eight photos of the scenes. Proof positive, some of those guys died from exposure soon after. He also mentioned that he has had his life threatened over this issue being brought to light. 
   
   
   * If this story proves to be true, it will be absolute conformation that a major 21 year international cover up of the highest order has just taken place
   
   * Thank you for your excellent reporting. Your story was far and away the best coverage of this breaking news. 
   
   
   * There's a good body of medical evidence showing that some troops who got anthrax vaccinations (and possibly others) developed serious illness, and of those, some remained permanently debilitated. It remains a point of contention that DoD's contracted RAND study on vaccinations, written by Dr. Beatrice Golomb, was never allowed to be published.
   
   
   * Some of us got the Botulism vaccine. 9 years later I was given the choice to stay in the Guard and take the mandatory anthrax vaccine or ETS. I got out, no more experimenting on this soldier.
   
   * This important 2011 study shows how much Iraqi troops were also affected. Of interest to us ill U.S. veterans of the 1991 Gulf War, those with the most symptom complaints were closest to Kuwait, adding even more credence to new evidence of the release of chemical warfare agents during the war.  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21805460
   
   
   * I was a CBR Specialist in Korea in 1965 and was responsible for Nuclear prediction plotting for the army. Using available weather data and nuclear weapon tonage for ground or air burst, would plot what were called wind vector plots to show predicteded radiation levels for a given area at a given time. This is basically the same process for the chemical conditions noted in the article and the information should have been and I suspect was known within days if not hours of the incident happening. It took decades for the VA to admit coverage for Vietnam Vets for Agent Orange and then only with outside investigation and effort of others. The military and government have a reputation for not admitting cupability untill proven without a doubt that it is responsible. From one old vet to anther I hope this study and others bring good results for those vets who have suffered from Gulf War Syndrome.
   
   
   * Has an epidemiological study been done on the Saudi civilians in the same area where our troops were bivouacked? Surely they weren't in a total no-man's land.
   
   
   * There is no Mystery over GWI/GWS call it what you may, ask any Veteran who was deployed/non deployed they can tell you Exactly what the Causes are.
   
   
   * That's why the illness was called a 'syndrome' - because there appears to be multiple (possibly interacting) causes: vaccines (given too close together in time, or in untested, unsafe combinations), plumes wafting from Nasiriyah and Khamisiya (I believe there was more than just sarin stockpiled there), depleted uranium (airborne dust), insecticides, toxic smoke from burning oil wells, and pyridostigmine... very unfriendly fire, it seems...
   
   
   * Imagine that...even with the testimony of a seasoned 1st Marine Division NBC Officer in front of Congress that the FOX NBC detection vehicles and other alarm systems were tested to 99.99% reliability, multiple alarms, simultaneously from various locations gave warnings indicating sarin...Marines having similar symptoms, 22 years later with this evidence, the VA will still question the validity.

* Let's not forget two rounds exploding 400 out and 400 up and witnessed by this artillery subject matter expert (SME) (Artillery Survey, Meteorological and Radar Officer)--knowing the rounds were not smoke or high explosive--had his Marines go to MOPP Level IV. While calling in the sighting to Battalion Headquarters, (talking to the BN NBC Officer(another SME) the battalion detection alarms were going off in the background over the radio. I asked him what it was, and he stated, "Sarin...stay suited up at MOPP Level IV." Multiple times before and throughout the offensive into Kuwait, detection devices blasted the warnings. The NBC Officer was later reprimanded and given an adverse fitness report for being an alarmist during combat operations. Go figure!
   
   
   * This has been documented before though not made very public. http://www.deepblacklies.co.uk/biological_black_magic.htm
   
   
   * Brothers and sisters, take it from an old Navy vet – the brass always, always covers its ass, all the way up the line. 
   
   
   * The US military and government health institutes have known about depleted uranium, the biological agents which were released through bombing of Iraqi sites and the contaminated vaccines in human bodies and their effects since 1996. But they hired some psychiatrists to pretend it was otherwise, and falsely claim that it "was all in the mind". Psychiatrists have labelled and still label gulf war illness as psychiatric and "all in the mind", a somatic syndrome. I think ordinary soldiers and ex-soldiers should be given the full report on Dr. Wessely (top British and international psychiatrist used by armed forces chiefs and governments) and his disciples and how they mislead them, and ruined their lives. The soldiers are sufficiently trained to deal with this particular problem.

    

Bombshell Exclusive: Scientists Link Gulf War Illness to Chemicals From U.S. Bombings

The 20-year mystery over Gulf War Illness, also known as Gulf War Syndrome, is finally close to being solved. The Reno Dispatch is the first news outlet to report that two shocking new peer-reviewed scientific research studies explain the enduring controversy over what caused many of the illnesses among literally hundreds of thousands of Gulf War veterans.

The first study confirms what many veterans already believed: weather patterns carried a massive toxic chemical cloud resulting from the U.S. bombing of Iraqi chemical weapon storage facilities a long distance before these chemicals ultimately fell on U.S. troops. 

This is being dubbed by some as the largest example of "friendly fire" in American history, because the so-called nerve and blister agents that dropped on American troops were supplied to Iraq by the U.S. before the Gulf War. These chemicals were then bombed by U.S. forces, which lifted them into the atmosphere and dropped on our own troops. 

The second study confirms that Gulf War Illness reports were higher at the places where the sarin fell. 

“Our peer-reviewed scientific findings bring us full circle by confirming what most soldiers believed when they heard the nerve gas alarms. The alarms were caused by sarin fallout from our bombing of Iraqi weapons sites,” James J. Tuite, who led the first study, said in a statement.

Tuite, a former special agent with the U.S. Secret Service, first came to this conclusion while heading the initial investigation into Gulf War Illness for a U.S. Senate committee in 1994. Over the years, he continued collecting evidence as national security adviser to Senator Robert Byrd, President pro tempore of the Senate. But Tuite now has the science to back up his assertions.

Gulf War veteran Paul Sullivan, a highly respected veterans advocate who works at Bergmann & Moore, a law firm that handles veteran disability claims, tells me, "For more than two decades, no one believed us when we said we are sick, and no one believed us when we said we were exposed to chemical weapons, including sarin, cyclosarin, and mustard gas. Now we finally have overwhelming scientific evidence that must immediately force the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to provide healthcare and disability benefits, including presumptive benefits for chemical exposures."

Sullivan adds, "Veterans need to urge our President to make sure no more of the 250,000 sick Gulf War veterans wait for care and compensation from VA."

The new findings, which are contained in two papers published together in the journal Neuroepidemiology, are hugely significant for Gulf War veterans. Why? Because prolonged exposure to sarin and mustard gas, for example, results in long-lasting adverse health effects, and this new scientific evidence should enable afflicted Gulf War veterans to file new disability healthcare claims with the VA.

Gulf War Illness too often goes unrecognized and untreated by the department. According to a 2011 VA report, only 55 percent of the 36,794 Gulf War Illness claims filed by 1990 – 1991 veterans under a 1994 law were approved by the VA. But those numbers stand to significantly increase as a result of these new studies, whose findings also have profound implications in Syria, where government forces have accused the rebel forces of using chemical weapons. 

President Obama said he is skeptical of these claims. Many believe it is the Syrian government that is preparing sarin chemical warfare agents for use in that nation's civil war.

In the first Gulf War study, civilian weather satellite images from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reveal a massive fallout cloud rising from the bombing of Iraqi chemical weapon storage facilities near Muthanna and Falluja, Iraq on the third night of the air campaign, January 18-19, 1991. 

The fallout plume then traveled more than 350 miles and stalled over U.S. troop positions in northern Saudi Arabia, triggering thousands of nerve gas alarms.

At the time, chemical warfare agent detection experts from four different countries detected sarin and blister agents within U.S. troop positions. Weather charts obtained for the newly published study confirm favorable northerly winds heading from destroyed Iraq chemical warfare agent targets and toward U.S. troops.

In 1991, the military assumed low-level nerve agents in the fallout from the bombing caused the repeated alarms and detections. But when the war ended, intelligence experts dismissed the possibility of long-distance transit of these chemicals. 

"The thousands of detections were left unexplained because the military incorrectly assumed a fallout cloud could only move along the surface and would have caused massive Iraqi casualties,” said Tuite. “The new evidence confirms how high explosive bomb blasts propelled the chemical agents through the calm nocturnal boundary layer into higher atmospheric layers where high winds carried them over the long distances.”

The second study, led by Dr. Robert Haley, chief of epidemiology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, analyzed data from an epidemiologic study of 8,020 randomly selected Gulf War-era veterans. Haley concluded that hearing a nerve gas alarm was strongly associated with the likelihood of developing the chronic brain symptoms known as Gulf War Illness.

In addition, Haley concluded, the more frequently nerve gas alarms were heard by our troops, "the greater the chances of coming down with Gulf War illness later. This dose-related risk was extremely steep and highly significant given the large size of this statistically valid sample of veterans."

The phenomenon of a large nighttime explosion penetrating the calm surface air and traveling long distances by high atmospheric winds is actually well recognized by scienctists, Tuite noteds in the study. For example, it is the accepted explanation for how radioactive fallout from the nighttime explosion of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor in 1986 was first detected two days later in Sweden, more than six hundred miles away.

Most importantly, these two new studies could potentially help tens and maybe even hundreds of thousands of Gulf War veterans who've suffered from this mysterious illness, which an ever-increasing among of scientific studies say is neurologically based, rather that psychosomatic, as the VA still contends. Many veterans may finally get the healthcare they have earned and deserve. 

Gulf War veteran and veterans advocate Anthony Hardie says that for more than 20 years, "many of us Gulf War veterans have associated our chronic and debilitating multi-symptom illness with chemical alarms and other hazardous exposures during the Gulf War. Today, research now also firmly links our illnesses with the sounding of Gulf War chemical alarms and an array of massive quantities of low-level Iraqi nerve and, perhaps for the first time, blister agents."

Hardie says Haley's research findings are made "all the more plausible given a large body of existing research linking Gulf War veterans' illnesses to organophosphates, the class of closely related chemicals that includes nerve agents, pyridostigmine bromide nerve agent protective pills, and pesticides."

But Hardie emphasizes that VA still has "no proven effective treatments for the roughly one-third of us veterans who remain ill and disabled from our Gulf War service. How much more will it take for the President, Congress and the VA to provide us the real help we still desperately need?"