Published November 10, 1999
Veterans have given more to their country than has been credited them. Our fighting men and women in the Gulf War, for instance, were exposed to chemical agents. The U.S. government's official position is that it didn't happen.
William Thomas, Journalist, Videographer and Author of several books including Scorched Earth and Bringing The War Home, documents the events of that 100-hour multinational military engagement. Nine years later, 92 veteran's tell their stories of honorable duty and uncompensated suffering [see <http://www.gulfweb.org/>].
On January 16, 1991 at 2:44 am, the city of Baghdad, Iraq, erupted with exploding bombs and defense tracer fire. Seventy-one million households tuned to CNN to see and hear the war live, as reported by Peter Arnett, John Hollman, and Bernard Shaw. It was the most memorable war commentary since Edward R. Morrow at the London blitz.
Three hundred jets from four U.S. aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf, and another 700 coalition aircraft from Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, delivered their ordinance upon the city, population 2.2 million.
Smart cruise missiles, 137 of them, targeted power plants, command centers and other priority structures. A British TV reporter witnessed a cruise missile pass his hotel’s sixth floor balcony, turned the corner, and demolish the nearby Defense Ministry building.
The flack was so intense, incoming F-15s and F-16s were forced to bomb from 20,000 feet, seriously decreasing target accuracy. The Pentagon later admitted that a mere 7% of all munitions directed upon Iraq were guided smart bombs; less than a third of those successfully damaged their intended targets.
Early in the engagement, three MiGs departed from Tallil Airfield in southern Iraq, where American troops later photographed a SU-22. It was outfitted with a “dry agent spray tank” identified by intelligence sources to be used to deliver 2,000 liters of anthrax upon a target. All three Iraqi jets were shot down.
As Baghdad burned, an earthshaking blast in a Saudi camp awakened Staff Sergeant Willie Hicks who ran for his bunker. Chemical detection units were all alarming intensely. Hicks said later, “Our faces were burning.”
The highest level of chemical warfare alert, MOPP-4, was called by the first sergeant. The frightened troops struggled into their bulky rubber suits, masks, boots and gloves. They remained at Mission Oriented Protective Posture-4 for the next 24 hours.
At Chemical and Biological Warfare (CBW) research and production sites at Ubaydah Bin, al Jarrah Airfield, Habbaniyah-1, -2 and -3, high explosives rained down from the night skies. The deadly poisons stored there were released and spread.
Iraq’s biggest chemical warfare production sites were destroyed. Dimethyl methylphosphonate and dimethyl hydrogen phosphate rose on superheated air; 17 tons of sarin nerve agent plumed miles into the sky.
Soviet chemical weapons expert I. Yevstafyev issued a warning: “Strikes on chemical and biological weapons facilities on Iraq’s territory could rebound on us.” The massive fires from air strikes lofted chemical agents into southerly winds of 20 to 55 knots.
At 5:00 am on January 17th, Saddam Hussein exploded a nerve agent over the darkened city of Tel Aviv. General R.I. Neal authenticated the cyclosarin attack in a military log. Israeli police confirmed that three Israeli civilians were killed. A CNN camera crew reported the first chemical casualties arriving at a Tel Aviv hospital. Within 40 minutes, CNN recanted their “mistake.”
Before dawn on the 18th, a NOAA satellite photographed an intense thermal source at the coordinates of 2,500 stored chemical rockets destroyed by coalition air attacks. The plume extended south blending sarin and other toxins with an even larger thermal toxic cloud from other bombed storage facilities. Six times heavier than air, the chemical agents disseminated over Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
By January 19th, allied air attacks had severely damaged chemical weapons storage areas at Nasiriyah near Khamisiyah. Three tons of nerve agents were lofted into the air. Coalition aircraft attacked other facilities at Qabatiyah. Frontal winds were still blowing toward the south-southeast.
At 3:36 am, Mike Tidd of the Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 24, standing guard in Tower 6, twenty feet above the port of al Jubayl, heard a sudden double percussive boom from the northwest followed by a brilliant flash of light.
The detection alarms shrieked all across Camp 13 at the 24th Naval Mobile Construction Battalion near the Saudi harbor. A double explosion leveled tents and threw one soldier to his knees. Petty Officer Symms joined Shipmate Sterling, everybody running to their bunkers. Symms smelled a sharp odor of ammonia. Their eyes burned and skin stung. Like the other Seabees, they donned full chemical gear and waited nearly two hours for the “all clear.”
Roy Butler later described his condition: “All of my exposed skin was like it was on fire. It was burning like crazy. I couldn’t breathe. I had to take my mask off and clear my nose.”
Mike Moore also donned gas gear, like deep-sea divers in the desert heat. Several hours later, after the all-clear, Seabees ran to water storage tanks to wash their reddened, burning skin. They were ordered back to their barracks.
Moore and Symm’s commanding officer told them that they had only experienced a “sonic boom” from a passing jet fighter. The officers each ordered their troops to stop discussing the incident. Radio operators were ordered to burn their log pages.
The shortness of breath, and the instant numbing and burning sensations were symptomatic of nerve, blister agent and mycotoxin exposure. Such symptoms were not indicative of the red fuming SCUD missile propellants, although this was the explanation officers used to dismiss the complaints.
Journalist William Thomas accounts for many other similar incidents in his book. Decontamination was not applied in the mass majority of reported chemical exposures. Those assailed veterans still suffer from serious physical disorders.
To our proud American soldiers, sailors and airmen, military service means being in harms way. Officially, U.S. military personnel were not exposed to chemical agents, so health care does not follow them into private life.
Read part 2 next week, conclusion of Gulf War Gas.