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Testimony of The Honorable Donald
W. Riegle, Jr. (U.S. Senate, Ret.) Chairman of Government Relations, APCO
Worldwide, Washington, DC Before the Subcommittee on Health
of the Committee on Veterans Affairs U.S.
House of Representatives, January 24, 2002 ______________________________________________________________________________ Chairman Moran, ranking member Filner, and members of the subcommittee, thank you for permitting me to testify here today. Even more, let me commend and thank you for your leadership, concern and perseverance in investigating the serious health problems today facing tens of thousands of Gulf War veterans and their families. To
this day, our agencies of government have largely stonewalled this
problem. This has left vast numbers of sick Gulf War veterans without
needed health care -
or the minimum disability support needed to sustain themselves and
their families. After
a decade of stubborn Defense Department denials of the reality and
scale of this problem -
we finally saw, just a month ago on December 11, a page one New
York Times story entitled U.S. Reports Disease Link to Gulf War. The
first paragraph of that article reads:
"After years of denying any link between illness and
service in the Persian Gulf War, military officials said today that
veterans of that conflict were nearly twice as likely as other
soldiers to suffer the fatal neurological illness known as Lou
Gehrig's disease." One
can ask how it is that we have lost a decade of time -
while tens of thousands of sick Gulf War veterans have languished and
suffered. All the while, our Defense Department has denied any linkage
to the Gulf War -
and has failed to invest any significant level of resources necessary
to find medical answers that might make the sick vets whole again. How
does one retain faith in a military command structure that is blind
and indifferent to the persistent suffering and death of its own
troops? Those veterans
have been crying out for help and very often have been told
"
.the problem is in your head -
take some pills -
in effect, go away, you're an embarrassment, we don't need you any
more." That's
just as ugly as it's been -
and to verify it you only need to ask them or talk to their widows.
Nearly
ten years ago in the U.S. Senate, the Banking Committee, under my
chairmanship, instituted a major investigative effort into the
probable causes of Gulf War Syndrome -
and the likely exposure of our Gulf War military forces to biological
and chemical weapons. I have brought copies of those investigative findings here
today -
and you will see that work was carefully documented at the time -
and presented in the Congressional Record in 1993 and 1994. It
is vitally important that Congress move swiftly to address these
problems especially since its a virtual certainty that many of
the biological weapons developed by Saddam Hussein were made with
live, disease-producing and poisonous materials sent from the United
States to Iraq in the late 1980s under the authority and approval
of the U.S. Department of Commerce.
These include Anthrax, E-coli, Botulism, and West Nile Virus,
among others. What
we discovered then has fresh significance today -
both the legions of sick Gulf War veterans urgently needing medical
help and support -
and the present danger of biological weapons exposure now to our
citizens here at home. Citizens
in our nation's Capitol have now been killed by weapons grade Anthrax.
The Congress itself has been targeted.
It is critically important we now draw upon all the knowledge
we have -
so we can better protect our people both here at home -
and also those in uniform in settings abroad. While
I have brought those original reports here today for your review, I
have copied certain key pages for your direct reference and knowledge
during this hearing -
and those specific pages are attached to my statement. You
will see that they summarize the conclusions of that earlier
investigative work and document by date and type the shipments of
dangerous biological materials from the United States to Iraq in years
past. You may wish
to discuss some of these items today. I
come today to make four immediate recommendations for your
consideration. There
is much we can and should do regarding the large number of Gulf War
veterans who are experiencing severe health problems.
Many are desperately ill and living in poverty.
Many others have died -
whose lives might have been extended.
There is great human urgency to this problem. First,
I believe we should initiate a full, independent medical review of
each Gulf War veteran who is listed on the voluntary medical registry. Whatever
help they need -
they should get without further delay -
and the federal government should pay every penny of the cost. Beyond
the individual examinations, we must catalog these patterns of
illness. We should do a
careful reconstruction of where each person was stationed during the
Gulf War and do a systematic construction of patterns of illness tied
to events, dates, places and likely exposures.
Many
of the veterans with whom I have spoken recall their experiences
vividly -
they are the best source of information about exposures.
Let's talk to them -
one by one -
actually listen to them -
and make a systematic determination of why they are sick -
and see if this information can guide us on how these Gulf War
veterans can best be treated medically. I
say again, the federal government should welcome this responsibility
and willingly pay all these costs.
These men and women were asked to step forward and defend our
country. They did.
And now they must have from us the full measure of help they
need to try to save and repair their lives. Second,
we need to determine exactly what biological and chemical weapons Iraq
still retains -
and prepare a strategy that can eliminate them once and for all.
The same is true for other such stockpiles that may exist in
the hands of would-be terrorists in other places.
Third,
we need new military doctrines and better protective measures that
will not put future U.S. troop deployments in areas of biological and
chemical weapons risk without proper safeguards.
These
safeguards have to include far better detection methods in war zones
where these kinds of weapons may exist.
For
example, during the Gulf War, we had over 14,000 chemical detection
warning devices dispersed throughout the combat zone.
These alarms went off tens of thousands of times as the air war
took place. The
Defense Department later claimed that each and every alert that was
sounded was a false alarm. Given
all the other documented evidence that has been assembled, that
patently false assertion cannot be allowed to stand.
If it does, it will continue to prevent the move to a new
regime of proper safeguards that can actually offer the protections
our combat forces need today -
and in the future. If
the best we can do when Lou Gehrig's disease affects a Gulf War
veteran ten years later -
is to finally say, "Well, sorry, we know it's a bit late, but
here is your service-connected disability check" -
then we really ought to hang our heads in shame. Fourth,
we also need full public disclosure of military contamination events
if and when they occur -
and a response with the full medical resources of our country to meet
the needs of any veteran who returns from a war zone, sick from
exposures while on duty. That
means a full disclosure Defense Department when it comes to sick U.S.
veterans. That requires a
President, as Commander in Chief, and a Defense Secretary who will
hold the officers at every rank to a standard of absolute truthfulness
and transparency on these life and death matters.
I believe President Bush and Secretary Rumsfeld are men who
would want such a standard. In
the United States today, our professional volunteer military force is
trained to accept command orders -
and be ready to die in combat if necessary.
In return we have a corresponding obligation on the part of our
government to use every available means to protect these fighting
forces during combat -
and to enable them to cope with the after-effects of combat. Chemical
and biological weapons risks can produce in veterans a form of living
death -
of lives broken forever by unseen wounds suffered in wartime.
As we are now finding here on the home front with biological
Anthrax attacks, we must have new and better methods of protection.
We must honor and protect these men and women within our armed
services as they serve our country by equipping them with everything
they need to stay alive and well.
They are not so equipped today. When
we fail that test, we dishonor them and dishonor our nation.
We can and must do better.
Hopefully, this committee's work will lead us in that
direction. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Back to Witness List |