Word: kamisiyah
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1996-1996
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Pentagon believes up to 20,000 U.S. troops may have been exposed to such poisons when they destroyed chemical weapons at the huge Kamisiyah depot in southern Iraq. But one leading investigator, James Tuite, says the emphasis on Kamisiyah is just the Pentagon's way of denying the scope of the problem. Tuite, who did a ground-breaking Senate study on the topic in 1993, believes soldiers are ill because of widespread allied attacks on Iraq's chemical-weapons factories and depots during the 39-day air war that began Jan. 16, 1991. During that assault, the U.S.-led alliance...
...sure looks that way. Pentagon officials say most of the combat diaries of significant events kept by the U.S. Central Command at General Schwarzkopf's headquarters--classified documents, no less--are missing, including those of the eight-day span during which U.S. troops destroyed the chemical-weapons stockpiles at Kamisiyah. (The logs could be reconstructed from the 30 million documents written by individual units under Schwarzkopf's command, but that would take years.) In the meantime, the Pentagon's acknowledgment that U.S. troops may have been exposed came only under pressure: the June 21 Kamisiyah announcement, for example, was made...
...what had been acceptable trace levels of chemical agents in the battlefield are found to be harmful, the U.S. military will have to revamp the way it protects its forces against even those tiny amounts. It would be particularly tragic if the symptoms are ultimately linked to Kamisiyah or fallout from the allied bombing; that would mean that not only did "friendly fire" account for nearly 25% of the Pentagon's 146 battlefield deaths, but also that successful allied actions were responsible for the war's most persistent and haunting pain...
...chemical exposure is contributing to the debilitating collection of ills known as Gulf War syndrome, which includes chronic fatigue, joint ailments, rashes and memory loss. But the Pentagon says it has no proof of a link and adds that there is no sickness pattern among those who were at Kamisiyah. Critics argue that the lack of a pattern is not conclusive. Some researchers suggest that chemical agents may cause illness through a specific sequence of events that can affect everyone differently. They fear that a combination of nerve-gas exposure, prewar vaccinations against such toxins and environmental hazards like smoky...
...Pentagon is asking Gulf War vets who were near Kamisiyah in March 1991 to register for a health exam by calling 1-800-796-9699 or 1-800-749-8387. "There are charges we have not listened to in the past," Pentagon spokesman Ken Bacon concedes. "We are trying to listen now." Even more people may be listening soon. The Pentagon announced that the 5,000 notifications--due in the mail as early as this week--may not be the last. It seems that some of the 24,000 troops in the Army's 24th Infantry Division were...