"Our protective gear – gas masks and chemical suits – were defective

during Gulf War round one, and it is the same this time around,” Denise

Nichols, vice chairman of the National Vietnam and Gulf War Veterans

Coalition, tells NewsMax.com.

 

Nichols adds: "The GAO [Government Accounting Office] did a study on

ours [chemical suits], and just last week testified to the Government Reform

Committee. It’s the same story again!

 

"Pray for our troops because that is more protective that their force

protective gear.”

 

In that hearing, members of the House committee lamented over testimony

about the possibility that troops heading for battle in Iraq may be issued

flawed chemical suits manufactured by a discredited contractor. Defense

officials could not say for sure if the Department of Defense supply system

had been purged of the defective suits, but believed the unaccounted-for

1989 vintage suits were used for training and then discarded.

 

However, Joseph Schmitz, the inspector general for the DoD, said that his

team just months ago "continued to identify units that have not segregated

those defective over-garments from their inventories.”

 

 

 

 

 

Nichols and Love are just part of a growing army of veterans’ advocates

warning that some health-hazarding mistakes of the 1991 Gulf War seem

about to be repeated.

 

Steve Robinson, executive director of the National Gulf War Resources

Center, is not at all happy with the state of affairs, as the U.S. stands poised

to once again invade the toxic land of Iraq. Among other things, he wants

speedy implementation of the Force Health Protection Law.

 

This law requires pre-deployment, during deployment and post-deployment

screening of soldiers – including serum collection and physical inspection

by a clinician.

 

Robinson says that scrupulous implementation of the public law is imperative

to prevent U.S. troops from having to repeat the Gulf War I exercise of having

to fight their own government for years to get compensation for service-

connected injury and illness:

 

"So far, science has taken 11 years to understand the exposures that veterans

of the last Gulf War faced. Science has absolutely shown that the illnesses

GWS veterans face are not as a result of the stressors of war, but as a result

of exposures, unapproved vaccines, unapproved pills and a myriad of other

things that have not yet been researched.”

 

 

records of troops in Iraq was not high priority,” Love says.

 

Meanwhile, all the veterans advocates seem to be concerned about

what they see as an insidious lesson to be drawn from fighting Saddam

the first time.

 

As for 1991’s Desert Storm operation, there remains to this day no hard

evidence that the mad dictator fired any biochemical agents at allied forces.

Yet the battlefield was still so toxic as to create frightening statistics about

the health consequences suffered by the U.S. troops that fought there.

 

The advocates point to the latest Department of Veterans Affairs report on

Gulf War I personnel, including medical illnesses and deaths in the 11

years since Operation Desert Storm.

 

For instance, the Gulf War’s totals of 148 combat deaths, 145 non-combat

fatalities and 213 wounded out of the 537,000 U.S. personnel who served

in the Persian Gulf region belies what has over the ensuing years evolved

into a health crisis for Gulf War vets.

 

The startling reality is that 36 percent (about 206,861) have filed medical

claims with the VA for illnesses stemming from their Desert Storm service.

(Note: a figure less than the 206,861 have to date been granted service-

connected disability.)

 

In historical context, the Korean conflict, which lasted years rather than

days, resulted in over 33,000 Americans killed in combat, and some

10,000 dying as a result of wounds, disease and accidents. The combat

wounded total was about 104,000.

 

Despite that vast disparity in numbers between the two American wars,

of the 2.3 million American veterans now receiving compensation, 172,600

are Korean War-era veterans, a number only 13,000 more than the Gulf

War veterans.

 

What’s more, according to the VA report, a surprising 8,013 Gulf War I

veterans who served in the conflict have already died.

 

Further attesting to the toxic nature of the last Gulf War’s battlefields, the

VA report discloses that a large number of service personnel who were

deployed into the Persian Gulf region after the war ended on Feb. 28,

1991, have also become ill.

 

Nichols concluded recently in a column, "As we watch yet another group

of warriors prepare once more for war in the Gulf region, we know that

existing force protection, medical care and reporting accountability

deficiencies have not been resolved.”