NewsMax.com
Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2003

Richard Lieby, in the Dec. 30 edition of the Washington Post, wrote: “The Pentagon says it still has no answer for an enigma that has confounded experts for more than a decade: What caused all the … memory lapses, fatigue, joint pains, rashes, headaches, dizzy spells, cancer, Lou Gehrig's disease and birth defects” collectively known as Gulf War Syndrome?

“Many vets speculated that they were poisoned by a combination of vaccines, pesticides, oil fire pollution and other battlefield toxins, including chemical and biological weapons stockpiled by Saddam Hussein.”

This is precisely what Robert McMahon of SFTT.org (Soldiers for the Truth) postulates.

“If we only had 467 wounded (in Gulf War I), why is the VA paying disability claims to 159,238 veterans of that war? Could it be the 320 tons of depleted uranium dust that littered the battlefield? Could it be our own carelessness in disposing of some of Saddam's chemical weapons? Maybe the rushed-to-market vaccines we gave to over 100,000 troops?”

He told NewsMax that the war in “Korea lasted three hard years, killed over 43,000 Americans, wounded over 105,000, and we are paying 172,000 disability benefits to these veterans.

“A 100-hour ground campaign that saw 148 Americans KIA and 467 wounded [in] Gulf War I [produced] 159,238 veterans receiving a medical disability payment monthly. That is damn near 30 percent of our forces committed to the region at that time."

McMahon added that the troops of Gulf War I were “the fittest bunch of troops to have ever been fielded by the U.S.”

And they are even better trained and equipped this time around … or are they?

Most of the so called “experts,” be they former military commanders or simply journalists and pundits, believe that Saddam Hussein, knowing his rule would not survive a war, will deploy his chemical and biological weapons.

Will the U.S. military be prepared this time?

Not according to Col. David Hackworth. In a recent column, he wrote: “A General Accounting Office report states that ‘serious problems still persist’ regarding the protective masks, suits and detection gear. And a December 2002 Army report states that more than half of its protective masks and nearly all of its chemical-weapons alarms are either ‘completely broken or not fully operational.’

“A Pentagon spokeswoman has counterattacked, insisting, ‘The Pentagon has substantially improved individual protective garments, gas masks and chemical detectors since the Gulf War.’

“But a line sergeant I'd trust with my life says, ‘The only improvement I've seen since the Gulf War is now that we have the M-40 Protective Mask instead of the M-17A1 … we can change our filters without committing suicide.’”

McMahon told NewsMax that the chem/bio gear that troops would use should another Gulf War begin has never been tested or rated under real conditions.

He said: “Basically, since WWI, a gas mask was something we taught troops about, but never really integrated into ‘real’ combat scenarios. You cannot fight, for example, in a chem suit - it's nearly impossible. By the 72nd hour, the suit would have to be changed anyway. It's porous and absorbs all the ‘bad stuff.’

“They are designed for specialty units, doing special work - not for sustained combat! Think of the organization that would need to be employed in combat - and I mean combat. The kind of combat WWII, Korea, and Vietnam had.”

So what can our soldiers expect if they go to war?

McMahon said: “This stuff [chem/bio weapons] really doesn't reach up off the ground well, so anyone who controls the sky, controls the battlefield. Countries that want to win or defend themselves hold them largely as a ‘terror weapon’ against troops and civilian populations - not as a ‘tactical weapon.’”

That is a modicum of relief, since the U.S. definitely has the edge in air power.

But one wonders, with predictions so dire regarding Saddam firing his oil wells, turning day to night and poisoning every soldier in the region, if anything positive will come from a war with Saddam.

One disabled veteran, Lonnie Shoultz, put this spin on the situation: “We have a new generation of whiz-bang weapons that his camel herders have never even heard about. When they see our microwave stuff work, they’ll cut and squall to leave.”

A short war, few chemical weapons, enemy troops running away … sounds like Gulf War I. For the sake of another 150,000 of our sons and daughters, we hope it’s not exactly the same.

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:

Saddam Hussein/Iraq

Editor's note:
Saddam Hussein’s race to make a nuclear bomb
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