Crossposted at http://Politicook.net

This the first in a series exploring chemical weapons.  We will begin with a brief history and basic properties, then move to the state of chemical weapons in the world today.  Chemical weapons have been used for centuries in warfare.  One could say, at the extreme, blackpowder and other explosives are chemical weapons, but modern usage defines chemical weapons as having a physical, physiological, or combination of effects against people.

There are many classes of chemical weapons, from "tear gas" (technically called a lacrimator) up to the lethal agents, commonly the "mustards" (blistering agents, vesicants) and the "nerve" agents (nerve impulse disruptors).

Politicook.net

This article examines America's claim of moral superiority in the Global War on Terror and it's actions in Iraq. Maybe we "presume" we operate within the confines of morality. In that case however, our presumptions would be slightly askew.

On February 28, 2008 the Government Accountability Office (GAO) the only branch of the government I trust at this point released this report on the progress or rather the lack of progress by the Department of Defense in looking for tens of thousands of Cold war era veterans used in several programs that used enlisted men and a few officers as "test vets" or "med vols" in programs known as SHAD/112 which was primarily a program that used unwitting naval personnel on ships at sea where they sprayed them with biological agents and in some cases had caged animals on deck and the crew then had to collect the dead animals for the scientists to do autopsies on them. They then had to decontaminate the ships before the crew could come back on deck. This is the link to the SHAD/112 website Project Shad.com. This is just one of many Cold War Era programs, to me this is the worst one, they never told the sailors what they were involved in and kept in the dark for over thirty years until DOD admitted to the experiments in the late 1990s.

There has been numerous stories over the years about the mysterious medical maladies that has become known as Gulf War Illness or the Gulf War Syndrome.  Many people have writen it off as mental conditions rooted with no links to "real" medical probelms.

The Department of Defense had a vested interest in finding no link to any cause that would hold them liable for compensation payments. If they could link the physical ailments that the 500,000 Gulf War era veterans were experiencing, the cost of compensation paid to veterans and their families would escalate by the billions, and rapidly. So research contracts were written in such ways that full disclosure would never be known and past medical studies with chemical weapons were to be ignored.

CHICAGO (AFP) - Nearly two decades after veterans of the 1991 Gulf War came home complaining of odd illnesses, enough evidence has been gathered to determine that many of them were sickened by chemical exposure, a study published Monday concluded.

Nearly two decades ago, an American-led coalition of 700,000 troops drove the invading forces of Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait and returned the Kuwaiti oil oligarchy to power. The Persian Gulf War, fought in the early months of 1991, temporarily settled by main force a regional quarrel over oil resources. The war also generated a number of adverse short- and long-term consequences, some of them too well-known to need repeating here. The war was a disaster for the Iraqi military forces and also for the Iraqi civilian population, who suffered the political social and health hazards of living in a war zone and under a brutal dictatorship.

Among the many varieties of evil fruit born from this conflict was a mysterious syndrome afflicting about 250,000 American Persian Gulf War veterans with chronic, multi-symptom health problems.

 SO surprising . WE brought the chemicals in and (possibly) used them according to a 2000 page leak from inside the government. Someone with a heart actually stood up and sent in this document of insanity and I wonder who will report it? Pardon me if I missed any mention of it on tv I don't really watch that much anymore. Some items of scrutiny as mentioned on the site wikileak.org are the number of bulk cash counters shipped to Iraq (39)  amounts of cash missing ( 9 billion. Bill Eeee Oonn.) and this little item I lifted directly from the site;
"Friday November 9, 2007

Wikileaks exclusive investigative report.

The United States has been caught with at least 2,386 low-grade chemical weapons deployed in Iraq. The items appear in a spectacular 2,000 page leak of nearly one million items of US military equipment deployed in Iraq given to the government transparency group Wikileaks. The items are labeled under the military's own NATO supply classification Chemical weapons and equipment. "
 

While listening last night to the BBC radio, I heard this statement from an Iraqi women who was located inside one of the internal refugee camps. There are two million internally displaced refugees inside Iraq. She is living in a camp with no security, no electricity, no clean water to drink.

Yesterday, John Edwards published an op-ed in the Sioux City Journal that concisely stated the basics of his plan for creating a world free from terror. Edwards originally laid out his counterterrorism strategy on September 7th in a speech at Pace University, so what he discusses in the op-ed is not new, but it is a smart strategy for not only combating existing terrorists, but also preventing new terrorists from being recruited by terrorist organizations.

Attack said spawned from chemical weapons disaster
by Larisa Alexandrovna (Link)

"Israel did not strike a nuclear weapons facility in Syria on Sept. 6, instead striking a cache of North Korean missiles, current and former intelligence officials say.

American intelligence sources familiar with key events leading up to the Israeli air raid explained to RAW STORY that what the Syrians actually had were North Korean No-Dong missiles, possibly located at a site in either the city of Musalmiya in the northern part of Syria or further south around the city of Hama."

I was just watching CNN break a story about a sample of chemical agents discovered in Iraq just after the 1st Gulf War.  Seems someone stuck two small packages containing glass vials in a file cabinet at a United Nations building housing, among others, the US Ambassador.  They were then apparently forgotten, laying in wait for 15 years.  Some of the samples are likely phosgene, a toxic nerve agent used as far back as WWI.

Although I confess I found the story perversely funny, I got to thinking about the Weapons Inspector, Secretary, or Junior Clerk who committed this absurd act.  And in so doing, I flashed back to my kids when they were young, and even my own childhood when, having done something beyond the pale I was cornered.

The first Gulf War ended in 1991, it has now been 16 years since that war ended, yet the medical community can not decide what is causing the many medical problems the veterans of that short war are experiencing.

It was one of the shortest wars in American history, yet has one of the highest percentages of veterans being compensated for "unknown medical issues" as there is no recognized etiology or nexus for the problems these men and women are suffering.

For years upon years the U.S. government has been using the ocean as a dumping ground for chemical weapons.  Let me say that again.

FOR YEARS THE U.S. GOVERNMENT HAS BEEN DUMPING CHEMICAL WEAPONS IN THE OCEAN

This is something I did not know about and I am guessing that maybe you don't either.  I first read about it at Deep Sea News and from their links I went to The Daily Press which has been all over this. I can't believe this hasn't garnered more attention, even in the debilitated MSM, but also out here in the lefty blogoshpere.

Follow me below the fold if you can stomach it.  

 SPECIAL REPORT: THE DEADLINESS BELOW

These weapons of mass destruction virtually ring the country, concealed off at least 11 states - six on the East Coast, two on the Gulf Coast, California, Hawaii and Alaska. Few, if any, state officials have been informed of their existence.

The chemical agents could pose a hazard for generations. The Army has examined only a few of its 26 dump zones and none in the past 30 years.

The Army can't say exactly where all the weapons were dumped from World War II to 1970. Army records are sketchy, missing or were destroyed.

More dumpsites likely exist. The Army hasn't reviewed World War I-era records, when ocean dumping of chemical weapons was common.

"We do not claim to know where they all are," said William Brankowitz, a deputy project manager in the Army Chemical Materials Agency and a leading authority on the Army's chemical weapons dumping.

"We don't want to be cavalier at all and say this stuff was exposed to water and is OK. It can last for a very, very long time."

Something weird is going on.  The story was mentioned by WCNC.com on live TV but is not on their web site.  

*** Update *** jimstaro found a new link published SHE SAYS HE WAS POISONED

Soldier's mother notified of an investigation opening into the nerve agent death of her son two years ago

Googling I found a link to the Charlotte Observer about the soldier but the link is mysteriously missing.

I found a cached version and will attach the full text before it disappears.

I along with 7119 other enlisted men were used in chemical weapons and drug experiments at Edgewood Arsenal between 1955 - 1975. The Department of defense used us in this March 2003 Sarin Report to create a report,The problem with this report they stated it was a comprehensive health study, yet it ignored cardiovascular, gastrointestinal and pulmonary medical conditions. It only focused on nuerological and sleep disorders, they determined that 25 personnel per 100,000 would get brain tumors and  unknown percentage would develop sleep problems, what? How could they ignore all these other body systems? They did it, because they wanted to, these other medical problems would cost compensation into the billions. Yesterday the NY Times did a story on a Boston University study that showed Sarin was linked to destruction of white brain matter, how did the IOM study miss this, in 2003?  Article by Ian Urbina May 17, 2007

The writer Ian Urbina in today's New York Times has published a story about a new Boston University study that shows exposure to Sarin (GB) causes white matter problems in the brain.

This would be earth shaking news except the Department of Defense and the Veterans Administration has known about it since at least 1994 when the national Institute of Health released this report on Organphosphate weapons which Sarin (GB) is one of them. How is this relevant to Gulf War Illness? Please recommend the diary so all  Daily Kos readers can see and hopefuly contact John Hall and Patty Murray these sick vets need help  won't you help?

One summer while I was in college, a relative in the construction industry got me a job doing hot tar roofing.  It was excellent money (union scale), but absolutely miserable work.  I had to get up about five in the morning, and drive to the job site, then spend 8 - 10 hours up on a blistering hot roof in East St. Louis, doing all the physically demanding and horrid things one has to do to replace a 'tar' roof on a large commercial building.

Early on, I learned to be leery of the tar pump - a machine placed on the ground that heated the big bales of pitch into an easy-to-use fluid, then pumped it up a long pipe to the roof site.  From there, it was loaded into various machines used to spread it evenly on the roof surface, and then covered with gravel.  Now, to get the pitch to the necessary consistency, it had to be heated to between 550 and 650 degrees (if memory serves - this was 30 years ago).  Meaning that when it came out of the pipe, it was extremely dangerous to handle, and you had to be very careful or it would wash the skin right off of your bones.  Also, about midway through the heating cycle, the stuff would give off a pale greenish gas that you learned to avoid as well.

On March 27, 2007 a MS. ELLEN EMBREY
DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR HEALTH AFFAIRS/ FORCE HEALTH PROTECTION & READINESS gave written testimony to Senate Veterans Affairs Committee about the veterans used in the human experiments at Edgewood Arsenal from 1955 thru 1975. I expect DOD officials to give "honest" facts to Senators, but this statement is false on many points of her testimony. I don't know who was responsible for getting her the information she gave, but whomever it was, the facts are wrong. I know this because I am one of the 7120 enlisted men used in this program.

I have been lied to, lied about, given many false statements about my role in these experiments. Senator Larry Craig the past Chairman of the Senate VA Committee was lied to specifically about my case, by Renee Szybala, Director of Compensation and Pensions of the VA in October 2005. I will detail it below the fold.