Vets Group Wants Rumsfeld Out Over Alleged Shipment to Iraq

CNSNews.com) - The American Gulf War Veterans Association (AGWVA) is calling for the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for his reported denial that he knew anything about U.S. shipments of chemical and biological agents to Iraq in the 1980s.

If the defense secretary is unaware or in denial of the sale of biological materials to a country the United States is preparing to attack, then he represents a danger to the lives of service members, said Joyce Riley vonKleist, a spokeswoman for ANGWA.

"As a result of the actions of the secretary of defense, we have now called for Mr. Rumsfeld's resignation or dismissal from his office. This is absolutely unconscionable," vonKleist said.

In response to questioning by Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Sept. 19, Rumsfeld "quickly and flatly denied" any knowledge that the United States helped Iraq acquire biological weapons during the Iran-Iraq war, Byrd stated in a Sept. 20 press release.

Rumsfeld, however, told Byrd he would review Pentagon records on the issue.

Byrd, citing a 1995 letter from David Satcher, the former director of the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the United States in fact provided nearly two dozen viral and bacterial samples to Iraqi scientists in the mid-1980s, "samples that included the plague, botulism, and anthrax, among other deadly diseases," according to Byrd.

A Senate report on U.S. dual-use exports to Iraq, dated May 1994, made clear the United States shipped anthrax and the West Nile virus to Saddam Hussein's nation in the 1980s with the knowledge and approval of the Commerce Department and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, vonKleist charged.

Rumsfeld should be up-to-date with information about the military capabilities of a potential enemy, she added.

A defense official had no comment on the veteran group's demand for Rumsfeld's resignation. Lt. Col. Cynthia Colin, a Defense Department spokeswoman, said a review of Pentagon records to date indicated, however, that the department had not supplied germs or other toxins to Iraq.

Rumsfeld's testimony has become a controversial subject with Gulf War veterans who have comrades who died of unexplained deaths or suffer illnesses the veterans believe they contacted in the Gulf in 1990-91.

Of 697,000 service members who deployed, 400,000 are suffering some form of illness related to the conflict, said vonKleist, who served as a medical crew director aboard a C-130 at the rank of captain in the Air Force in 1991.

According to an April 2002 report from the Department of Veterans Affairs, nearly 7,800 Desert Storm veterans have died since the end of the conflict and nearly 200,000 filed claims with the VA for medical problems.

Gulf War veterans suffered from exposure to biological and chemical weapons, depleted uranium in ammunition, and smoke from oil well fires, veterans' groups report. VonKleist said the Defense Department has not fully investigated the effects of various vaccines service members were required to take, including inoculations for anthrax.