Pentagon: More Gulf War troops exposed to gas

The US Defence Department says an additional 829 military personnel may have been exposed to deadly gases when an Iraqi chemical weapons depot was destroyed during the Gulf War.

Dr Michael Kilpatrick, chief of staff for the Office of the Special Assistant for Gulf War Illnesses, Medical Readiness and Military Deployments, said the number was increased after veterans contacted Pentagon officials to tell them their locations when the depot exploded.

The increase brings the total of possible exposures to 101,752. Military officials have steadfastly said the level of exposure was not hazardous.

The Khamisiyah weapons depot was destroyed March 4 and 10, 1991. It was discovered later that the depot and a nearby pit contained hundreds of weapons filled with lethal sarin, cyclosarin and mustard gases.

The Pentagon created a computer model of the vapour cloud in 1997 and sent letters to troops who might have been exposed.

Three years later, the Pentagon revised the computer model using new weather data and troop information. The new model showed a different track for the vapour cloud, and some different troop exposures.

For years the Pentagon discounted claims that mysterious illnesses cited by Gulf War veterans could be tied to toxic exposures.

Last December, though, a Pentagon-supported report by the Rand Corp’s National Defence Research Institute raised the possibility some undiagnosed illnesses could be explained by exposure to low levels of Iraqi nerve gas.

A Veterans Affairs analysis released in February showed that the soldiers the Pentagon had removed from its initial list of exposures at Khamisiyah had a much higher death rate than those on the current list. VA Director Anthony Principi ordered further study. No findings have been released yet.