Note: This document is the unofficial version of the Congressional Record. The printed Congressional Record produced by the Government Printing Office is the only official version.
MR. RIEGLE. I thank the Chair, and I thank my colleague from Nebraska and
my colleague from Hawaii.
Mr. President, I am here today with some very important information with respect to what may be affecting the health of our gulf war veterans, many of whom have come home with terribly disabling medical problems. I have been meeting with them, both here in Washington, and back in my home State of Michigan. It is hard to describe fully the magnitude of this problem without addressing individual cases and actually having them give first-person accounts as to both what happened to them when they were over in the war zone and also what has happened to them since they have returned.
Back on September 9, here on the Senate floor, I released a lengthy report which suggested that the illnesses which have come to be called gulf war syndrome - a collection of illnesses, serious illnesses, that our veterans are experiencing - could have resulted from exposure to chemical and biological warfare agents in the war zone, either through direct exposure from some kind of weapon, or shellfire; or from the downwind exposure as we bombed these biological and chemical weapons facilities - throwing hazardous debris up into the air which was then carried down over our troops.
There is also a question as to whether some of the medicines that we gave our troops to protect them against exposures of this kind may also have had the result of making some of them sick.
In any event, the symptoms associated with what is called gulf war syndrome are very debilitating and, in fact, have already killed too many of our returning veterans. The symptoms include muscle and joint pain, serious memory loss, intestinal and heart problems, fatigue, runny noses, urinary and intestinal tract problems, twitching, rashes, sores, and emotional and temper problems. There is a whole long list. These are the kinds of things that our research reveals could very readily be caused by exposures to chemical or biological weapons agents.
We started our inquiry by looking at chemical weapons because, after the war was over, the U.N. inspectors found huge stockpiles of chemical weapons held by Saddam Hussein. We also knew that in previous war encounters with the Kurds and the Iranians, they had used chemical weapons and that they had a very advanced capability in that area.
When the U.N. inspectors went in, they found thousands of chemical weapons shells. During the war itself, and this is based on a large number of first-hand accounts by veterans from Michigan and around the country who were in the gulf, that shells exploded, chemical alarms went off and they were told to put on their chemical protective gear. Many got sick at the time. Many remained sick after coming back to the United States.
In one very graphic instance, a Marine officer was running the most sophisticated mechanical chemical detection device deployed in the battle area. A chemical alarm went off and he got a computer reading as to what chemical agents were present in the area in which he was patrolling. It was recorded on a computer tape. He called into his headquarters and they asked him to send it in. He gave it to a courier and, of course, the tape has disappeared and has not been seen since. We do know this happened, and he has so testified before the U.S. Senate.
We also have had other countries come forward in this area. Czechoslovakia has. They documented that they detected chemical agents in areas where their own troops were positioned. We know that this was something that happened.
Now the problem is tracing what the link may be between those kinds of exposures and the problems affecting our returning veterans.
Beyond the very substantial body of data on chemical weapons exposure, including that on the fallout from their plants and the distribution of these toxins in the weather patterns, which we learned of last September, we are now pressing on in the area of biological weapons. We have done that because we have seen more and more cases of a breakdown in the health of veterans that may be consistent with exposure to biological toxins and biological agents.
We have had a number of researchers contact our office since we started with this inquiry, asking for help in tracking down what might have been out there to which our sick veterans could have been exposed.