Word: sarin
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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After CNN and TIME ran stories saying the U.S. military had killed American defectors and had used deadly sarin nerve gas during a commando mission in Laos in 1970, the Pentagon began combing its Vietnam archives to confirm--or refute--the report. Last Tuesday, after a six-week investigation, Defense Secretary William Cohen released a report declaring that the military could find "absolutely no evidence" for either of the allegations...
...operation never mentioned hunting down U.S. turncoats. And while Air Force warplanes dropped a "personnel-incapacitating agent" on enemy troops to help rescue the 16 Americans and more than 100 of their Montagnard allies under hostile fire, it was a potent form of tear gas that was used, not sarin...
...document--military order, after-action report, briefing paper or official military history--mentions pursuit of U.S. defectors as Tailwind's mission," Cohen said at a Pentagon briefing. "While sarin was stored in Okinawa in 1970, we found no evidence that sarin nerve gas was ever sent to or used in Vietnam or Laos." The pilots who dropped the bombs, as well as those who loaded them into the planes, said the weapons contained tear gas, the Pentagon said. Two Tailwind veterans and a pair of their commanders looked on as Cohen praised their bravery and ordered a review to ensure...
Cohen declared the story "irresponsible" because it leveled such grave charges against the U.S. and its troops without the "overpowering evidence" such explosive allegations require. The Pentagon probe found that Robert Van Buskirk, a Tailwind platoon leader and a prime source for the original story, never mentioned sarin or defectors in an after-action briefing he gave. Retired Captain Michael Rose, the Tailwind medic, told Pentagon investigators that he had no doubt the fumes he inhaled were tear gas, just like the whiffs he got in basic training. "It's like skunk," he said. "Once you smell it, you never...
...also agreed to pay Thomas Moorer, a retired Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a settlement reported to be $100,000. The original program and article stated that Moorer confirmed the use of sarin during Tailwind, which he has denied...