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Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Nov. 14, 1996
issue of Workers World newspaper
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Gulf War Syndrome: Does exposé of CIA hide real story?

By John Catalinotto

Is it an exposé-or a diversion?

Two ex-CIA employees broke into the major news media in late October by going public with what they call a "government cover-up" of GI exposure to nerve gas during the 1991 Gulf War against Iraq.

The story got covered in the big-business media, with major stories in the Oct. 30 New York Times and the Nov. 11 Newsweek as well as on television.

The two CIA analysts-Robin Eddington and Patrick Eddington-criticize the CIA. But they do so in a way that can mislead anyone looking for the real causes of Gulf War illness. It also gives the Pentagon the easiest way out of a sticky situation.

Patrick Eddington's coming book, "Gassed in the Gulf," argues that Iraq used nerve gas against U.S. troops and the CIA covered this up. This would mean that while U.S. sanctions were killing thousands of Iraqis each week, oddly enough the U.S. top spy agency was protecting Iraq's reputation.

In public statements, the CIA described the couple as truthful, competent and even loyal. This is unlike the hostile attacks on left-wing CIA critics like former agent Philip Agee.

The Eddingtons first broke their story to the ultra-right Washington Times, the daily newspaper founded by followers of the Unification Church of Rev. Sun Myung Moon, himself close to both U.S. and south Korean intelligence agencies. The paper frequently attacks U.S. administrations from the right.

In 1994, while still connected to the CIA, Robin Eddington also worked for Michigan Sen. Don Riegle. In that job she took part in one of the first Congressional investigations of Gulf War illness.

Gulf War illness

Some 60,000-100,000 of the 670,000 U.S. troops who participated in the Gulf War have reported unexplained illnesses. Their symptoms include gastrointestinal dysfunction, severe fatigue, chronic headaches, joint aches and memory loss.

For years the Pentagon answered GIs' complaints by claiming the symptoms were psychosomatic, caused by post-combat stress. This insensitivity to the veterans revealed how the Pentagon really thinks of the GIs-as expendable material, an attitude the military brass try to hide during a war.

With growing anger, sick GIs and their supporters pointed to a number of other possible causes for Gulf War illness, including:

ù Weapons made with depleted uranium, an extremely dense metal used as a coating to improve the performance of shells and armor. Because it is a heavy metal it is poisonous. It is also radioactive. Used in shells, it burns on impact and the fine particles can be inhaled. These particles are especially dangerous when they lodge in the lungs. Over 300 tons of DU were left in the Gulf War region.

ù Adverse reaction to untested vaccines that were supposed to protect troops from illness and from chemical weapons.

ù Exposure to mycoplasma incognitus, a usually harmless micro-organism which some say was genetically altered by the U.S. biological-weapons program to make it virulent.

ù Exposure to insecticides in combination with some of the vaccines.

ù Exposure to sarin, a deadly nerve gas, perhaps when U.S. demolition units blew up Iraqi ammunition depots.

Some argue that all the above causes contribute to Gulf War syndrome.

Until this summer, the Pentagon denied there was such a thing as Gulf War illness, just as it denied any harm from Agent Orange for almost 20 years. Lately the Pentagon has admitted that some 5,000 troops were exposed to sarin. Now the government is funding studies of the impact of sarin.

A finding that this nerve gas is the sole cause would create the fewest problems for the Pentagon.

Why the exposé can be a diversion

The International Action Center, a group founded by former Attorney General Ramsey Clark, has led the struggle against United States/United Nations sanctions against Iraq. The IAC has begun to mobilize a movement against depleted-uranium weapons, which had not been used in combat before the Gulf War. The IAC looks at the Eddingtons' expos‚ with skepticism.

Sara Flounders, IAC national organizer, told Workers World: "How convenient that this CIA analyst got a job on a senator's staff. The Pentagon would love to have Gulf War illness blamed on Iraqi nerve gas. This explanation short-circuits the struggle to find out the real causes.

"It also allows the Pentagon and other armies around the world to continue using depleted-uranium weapons. This threatens to pollute battlefields worldwide with low-level radiation," Flounders said.

"In addition, the Eddingtons' argument diverts blame from the Pentagon to the Iraqis. It blames the victims. The Iraqis were completely outgunned by the U.S.-led alliance, suffering hundreds of thousands of killed. In comparison, 148 U.S. troops died, many by friendly fire. The battles were like a 19^th-century colonial slaughter of indigenous peoples," she said.

"The Iraqis continue to suffer from the sanctions and from the destruction of their environment," Flounders said. "On Nov. 2 the United Nations Security Council voted to continue these sanctions. Even the UN's own study admits these sanctions killed over 1 million Iraqi people, half of them children. A scientific study of Gulf War illness suffers because U.S. sanctions prevent Iraqi scientists from participating in it."

Flounders added that "only studies that carefully examine all the possible causes of Gulf War illness can guarantee proper care for Gulf War veterans and protect the rest of the world."

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