Global Security Newswire

Flawed computer modeling led U.S. agencies to conclude there was no connection between potential exposure to chemical weapons by military personnel during the 1991 Gulf War and their subsequent rates of hospitalization and death, the General Accounting Office said yesterday (see GSN, Dec. 4, 2001).

The GAO report questions models used by the Defense Department and CIA on the number of troops exposed to chemical agents during the war.

The Defense Department said it would stop using computer models on the toxic plumes that resulted from some bombings during the war. However, the department refused to accept a GAO recommendation to stop using the modeling data for studies on Gulf War illness, the Associated Press reported.

“The modeling was not flawed,” the Defense Department said in a written response to the report. “The data the DOD used was and is the best information available and any research that desired to use it would know the limitations of the data,” the department added.

The CIA told the General Accounting Office it had not had enough time to review the report in order to make a response.

Veterans have suffered from illnesses they believe are linked to their service in Gulf, with reported symptoms including chronic fatigue, diarrhea, migraines, dizziness, memory problems, loss of muscle control and loss of balance.

Roughly 700,000 veterans have experienced undiagnosed conditions, the GAO report states. The Defense Department estimates that 101,752 service members were potentially exposed to chemical warfare agents during the war (Suzanne Gamboa, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, June 1).