Panel Releases Grim Gulf War Report Extent Of Exposure To Chemical Fallout May Never Be Known

A panel of independent scientists has determined that there is a “very real possibility” that the Pentagon will never know how many American troops may have been exposed to chemical weapons in the demolition of an Iraqi ammunition depot shortly after the 1991 Persian Gulf War, the Defense Department has announced.

The Pentagon has estimated the number at 20,000, but the panel’s finding suggests that any estimate would be suspect given the uncertainty about the weather at the time of the demolition, the number of shells that were destroyed and the purity of the nerve agents and other chemical weapons that were stored in the shells.

The Defense Department said in a news release that it had asked the scientists to continue their studies.

The scientists’ finding raises new questions about the government’s earlier assurances that American troops were not exposed to chemical or biological fallout from the relentless bombing of Iraqi chemical- and biological-weapons factories during the war.

The news release was made available at the Pentagon late on Friday afternoon, too late for television networks to include it in their evening broadcasts, and without any notification to news organizations.

It is the latest in a series of incidents in which the Pentagon has released bad news about this and other issues late on a Friday afternoon.

After years of denials, the Pentagon announced earlier this year that it had received evidence suggesting that thousands of troops may have been exposed to chemical weapons in the destruction of the vast Kamisiyah depot, which was blown up by a battalion of American combat engineers.

While there were no reports of acute symptoms among the troops at the time of the demolition, many have since reported chronic, debilitating health problems that they link to the explosion.