Have Lessons Of The Gulf Been Learned?

December 17, 2004|By BOB EVANS

The Pentagon's new rules for training and evaluating troops exposed to depleted uranium aren't being followed in many cases, troops say.

CHAPTER 7: Will it happen again?

When U.S. troops deployed for the 1991 Persian Gulf War, very few of them had even heard of depleted uranium.

Even fewer received any training about its characteristics or possible health hazards.

"There was no training for depleted uranium," says Steve Smithson, assistant director of the American Legion's Veterans Affairs and Rehabilitation Division.

In the Gulf War, Smithson was in the 1st Marine Division. Since then, he's been working to help vets with health problems they think are related to their service.

There are a lot of them. More than a quarter of the 697,000 men and women who went to the 1991 war have some form of disability from the Department of Veterans Affairs, a rate nearly three times higher than those of previous wars.

Government officials deny that any of those veterans are suffering as a result of inhaling the toxic and mildly radioactive dust that results from explosions involving depleted uranium.

But after spending more than $247 million, they also can't say what's made all those veterans so sick.

Which raises the question: What will happen to the troops from the latest wars?

The official list from the 1991 conflict still has depleted uranium weapons as a possible culprit. But it also includes high-strength bug repellent containing DEET and other chemicals, experimental pills and shots given to ward off the effects of diseases, exposure to chemical weapons, and inhalation of high levels of hydrocarbons from oil-well fires.

Military health officials say the troops who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan will be spared most of those risks, but they acknowledge that it'll be years before they'll be able to say with certainty how much healthier they will be.

Many of the dangers encountered by troops in the 1991 war have simply been avoided: Different bug sprays and drugs are being employed to keep people healthy, for instance.

But not all have been replaced, including the use of depleted uranium weapons. The weapons provide a decisive advantage on the battlefield because they can slice through the toughest armor used in opponents' tanks and other hardware. Pentagon officials say about 150 tons of the slim depleted uranium projectiles were fired in Operation Iraqi Freedom -- about half the amount used in the Gulf War.

Pentagon officials insist that any dangers to U.S. troops from the use of depleted uranium weapons will be reduced significantly as a result of training programs enacted since the 1991 war.


The Government Accountability Office, or GAO, has raised questions about how much of the training has been pushed down the ranks, particularly when it comes to reserve units.

So do the troops who've gone to fight the latest war.

A key Army environmental and health study says transportation soldiers are among those who should have special training. Fort Eustis in Newport News is the home of the Army Transportation Corps, a post that's sent thousands of active-duty and reserve troops off to war in the past two years.

It offered no training in depleted uranium to hundreds of reservists called up to be deployed overseas, and it stopped giving that training to the regular Army troops at the post in late 2002, officials there say.

Having any training at all on the dangers of depleted uranium on the battlefield is a big change from what the soldiers who went off to fight the 1991 Gulf War experienced, says Michael J. Kilpatrick, deputy director of deployment health at the Pentagon.

"The Army has done an excellent job in doing depleted uranium awareness training," he says. Several years ago, the Army made questions about depleted uranium part of its "Common Tasks Manual," a compilation of military knowledge and skills that makes up an annual quiz each soldier takes before being certified up to speed in training.

Kilpatrick says one indication this is working is that only about 1,000 men and women returning home from service in Operation Iraqi Freedom have asked for testing so far. Only five have tested positive for exposure to depleted uranium, he says, and all of them had depleted uranium shrapnel.

More than 250,000 Army soldiers have been to the Iraqi war theater so far, an Army spokesman says. Navy and Air Force personnel aren't considered likely for exposure to depleted uranium from a battlefield, though at least one of the people who tested positive for depleted uranium from the recent fighting was in the Air Force, Pentagon officials say.

Critics say the low numbers could result from other factors.

K. Craig Hyams, a medical doctor and consultant to the Department of Veterans Affairs, says the Pentagon's method of deciding who needs to be tested is flawed -- and probably is part of the reason that the number of returning service personnel designated for medical attention isn't higher.

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