Against All Enemies

Did the American bombing of Iraq's chemical and biological manufacturing
facilities and storage depots inadvertently release germs, gases, or other
toxic materials, leading to low-level exposure that may have had more
damaging effects than previously known? Did the vaccines and medications
provided to soldiers to help them survive a nerve gas or anthrax attack
reduce resistance to low-level exposure to those very agents? Were GIs
contaminated by fallout from the widespread American use against the
Iraqis--for the first time in warfare--of antitank shells and bombs made
from depleted uranium, a radioactive heavy metal that burns on contact?

The medical mystery behind Gulf War syndrome is a complex epidemiological
maze that will take years to fully unravel, if ever. But a sick soldier or
sailor is sick, whether due to stress or to some obscure illness that
defies immediate diagnosis. Why did the system fail the Gulf War veterans?
Did national heroes such as Norman Schwarzkopf and Colin Powell, who were
known during their careers for taking care of their troops, have an
obligation to speak out on behalf of the veterans--as many sick GIs
believe--and demand that America's military hospitals stop turning them
away?

The unsettling fact is that the Gulf War was far more costly to the United
States than the Pentagon and its former leaders are willing to
acknowledge. Well over one hundred thousand Gulf War veterans have
registered thus far for physical examinations at Pentagon and VA clinics,
with nearly 90 percent reporting some symptoms. Those men and women are
friendly-fire casualties just assurely as if they had been fired upon by
their fellow soldiers. The military's inevitable dilemma is profound: Can
it protect our soldiers and sailors in future wars if it was unable to do
so in the Gulf War?

American soldiers were spared from Iraqi bullets and artillery shells in
the Gulf War, but not from toxic gases, mysterious viruses, and unknown
disease. For all of their brave talk about future warfare, the men who run
America's military have been unwilling--perhaps even unable--to learn the
real lessons of the Gulf War.

Colin Powell, for one, professes no second thoughts about his role in the
Gulf War. "We did everything we could to try to protect our troops," he
said in an interview for this book. "We had a lot of folks running their
mouths [before the war] and saying twenty thousand will be killed. Well,
less than five hundred were killed"--in the war and as noncombatants.
"It's a remarkable achievement." Asked about the veterans suffering in the
aftermath of the war, Powell said, "We are still not sure if there is a
Gulf War syndrome. You can scream and shout about it, but there is no
answer." Powell told me that he agrees that the United States has an
obligation to take care of its ailing veterans, no matter what the cause
of their illness, but added that his responsibilities ended upon his
retirement from the army in the fall of 1993. "If there are still some
veterans who say I should have done more or said more," Powell said, "my
answer is, I wasn't in the government."