Roughly 20 years ago, I became interested in the phenomenon called "Gulf War Syndrome (GWS)". For those of you who are not familiar with it, a description can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War_syndrome
I did some informal "research" at the time and spoke to many victims of the malady. Here is a list of the things I found, in no particular order:
(1) One of the first places I visited to learn about GWS was the Disabled American Veterans office in New Haven, CT. One of the counselors there told me that nuclear weapons had been used during Operation Desert Storm. I was to hear such claims many times over the next 20 years, but I have never uncovered proof that such a thing happened. Perhaps the things I discussed in this blog post are the closest we'll ever come to physical evidence proving that any radioactive weapons other than DU have been used (yet) in the Middle East:
http://sainthoward.blogspot.com/2013/08/was-there-nuclear-attack-on-syria.html
(2) Another place I visited was the VA Hospital in New Haven, CT. The head of their medical library told me that in the run-up to Operation Desert Storm, the government had sent box loads of documents and reports about the types of diseases our troops might be exposed to while deployed. She also said that after the war when our troops got sick with GWS, no doctor ever looked at any of those documents or reports. Not even once.
(3) One of the first US doctors to publish a paper about sand fly fever was LTC Albert Sabin, the inventor of the polio vaccine which bears his name.
(4) I attended the first national conference about GWS in Bethesda, MD. The panel opened the conference by stating that the government was not giving them access to the information they needed to do their job. After the conference, I learned that military doctors attended a private conference of their own following the public one I attended. I am not aware that the findings of their conference have ever been published.
(5) I attempted to collect samples from Gulf War veterans to have them analyzed for toxins to which they may have been exposed. I was not successful in this effort. I contacted many of the laboratories around the world that were capable of analyzing samples for chemical warfare agent residue, but none were interested in helping. Their excuse (a good one) was that the provenance of any such samples could not be proven (i.e., there was no chain of custody), so any testing would be meaningless. I later discovered that most if not all veterans who turned over their samples to "researchers" did so without executing any chain of custody documentation.
(6) I learned that the Pentagon and DOE had deployed an airborne LIDAR system to measure the toxins from the burning oil wells in Kuwait and elsewhere. I filed a Freedom of Information Request to get the data from these measurements, but had no success. The government told me that no such data existed.
(7) There were some early reports that gas mask filters collected during Desert Storm contained BW agents, but it is likely that the bacteria found on them were naturally occurring in the region. Apparently the "researchers" made no effort to confirm the source of the bacteria.
(8) The Israelis stated that if Saddam attacked them, they would retaliate at a time and in a manner of their choosing. We were told that the Israelis could not fly into Iraq during the war and subsequent quarantine because coalition forces had not given them the aircraft IFF codes. However, the publication Aviation Week and Space Technology reported that the Israelis flew many missions over Iraq during that period, apparently whenever they wanted to. The purpose of these missions has not been revealed.
(9) It was reported that approximately 300 tons of DU munitions were used during Desert Storm and left on the ground. However, there were other sources of radioactive contamination from the war. The phosphate plant at al-Qaim was bombed during Desert Storm, and a portion of its tailings pile was dispersed into the air. This pile contained uranium and fission products from the natural decay of uranium in the phosphate rock. I did an unpublished study which showed that radiation doses from dispersion of this tailings pile may have been 6 times higher than the dose from 300 tons of DU munitions. This extra radiation dose has not been considered in GWS studies. Here is a description of the facility:
http://www.iraqwatch.org/entities/images/qaim.htm
(10) I suspected that if nuclear weapons had been used by coalition forces, our troops may have been given a prophylactic dose of potassium iodide (KI) to protect their thyroid glands. However, I was able to verify by assay that at least one batch of the pills given to our troops did not contain KI.
(11) It has been suggested that a plague vaccine manufactured by Cutter Pharmaceuticals was a possible cause of GWS. Several years ago I discovered that some time after Operation Desert Storm, Cutter gave up its license to manufacture the vaccine, dismantled the plant where it was made, and destroyed all the equipment. Does such action suggest that something was wrong with their vaccine? You be the judge.
(12) It also has been suggested that chemical warfare agents were a possible cause of GWS. I learned that the Soviets had developed and field tested the novichok nerve agents around the time of Desert Storm, so I spoke to one of the Soviets who had worked in the Foliant Program which produced novichok. A summary of my interview with him can be found here:
http://sainthoward.blogspot.com/2013/05/were-chemical-weapons-used-during-first.html
(13) The Rand Corporation mentioned my novichok paper in one of their reports. They called Dr. Mirzayanov "a Russian émigré". While partly true (he is not Russian, but he is an émigré), they neglected to mention that Dr. Mirzayanov is a leading expert in the field of chromatographic analysis and was the head of the Department of Counteraction to Foreign and Technical Investigations for GSNIIOCT and its branches, with responsibilities for CW countermeasures. Had they done so, the importance of his revelations might have been better understood.
I regret that I was unable to help any of the veterans who suffer from GWS. I always had the feeling that the US government not only did not care about their plight but had intentionally and knowingly done things which made them sick.
We'll never find out what really happened during Operation Desert Storm, and that's a crying shame.
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