by Donald S. McAlvaney, Editor,
McAlvaney Intelligence Advisor (MIA), August 1996
Gulf War Illness appears to have come from four primary sources:
- Biologicals – which Saddam fired at the U.S. and coalition forces via his Scud missiles.
- Immunizations – forced upon Americans (and coalition) troops using untested, experimental vaccines.
- PB (Pyridostigmine Bromide) pills forced upon our troops by their commanders.
- Blowback from destroyed bunkers and factories that contained chemical and biological weapons.
There were 28 countries in the coalition which participated in the Desert Storm War with the U.S. troops, and 27 of them have come down with the GWI. Only France’s soldiers do not have it. France did not let the troops take the experimental inoculations and pills which were forced upon the American and other allied troops.
And when their troops were exposed to Scud missile biological attacks, or began to come down with symptoms, the French immediately administered doxycycline to their troops and they quickly recovered. (Actually the French troops had doxycycline administered prior to and after their exposure to the biologicals). The DOD forbids the use of doxycycline for the treating of U.S. troops for GWI – even now (five years later) in some VA hospitals. In order VA hospitals, however, physicians are beginning to treat GWI patients with doxycycline and other antibiotics.
Another reason for the widespread infections among American Gulf War troops was that the U.S. government did virtually nothing to protect them from the biologicals even though out government knew what Saddam would use – since we sold the biological warfare agents to him over the prior five years. Where gas masks and chemical protection were used they were inadequate, leaked, and were not designed to protect against sophisticated germ warfare agents. And now, to cover up its mistakes, the DOD says biologicals were never used by Iraq. This is a lie!
A. THE U.S. GOVERNMENT AND FIRMS SolD BIOLOGICAL AGENTS TO SADDAM
“Ironically, much of Iraq’s chemical arsenal was made by U.S. companies – 80 of which face a class action lawsuit by 2,000 ailing vets.”Life, November 1995. [ED. Actually 3/4 of those companies are foreign].
“American capitalists will do anything to make a profit. They will even sell us the rope with which we will hang them.” – Vladimir Lenin.
On 2/10/94, the Houston Chronicle carried an article entitled: “U.S. Shipments to Iraq Feared As Cause of Veterans’ Ailments” which said: During the 1980’s, the U.S. government approved shipments of biological agents to Iraq that could be the cause of debilitating illnesses plaguing Persian Gulf War veterans. Sen. Donald W. Riegle, Jr. (D-MI) said Wednesday.
The viruses and bacteria, commonly used to develop biological weapons, were shipped directly to Iraqi government agencies by American Type Culture Collection, a non-profit group in Rockville, MD, that collects and distributes biological specimens worldwide. Virtually all the shipments, Riegle said, were approved by the Reagan administration’s Commerce Dept. between 1985 and 1989 despite long-standing suspicions that Iraq had been involved in biological warfare.
On 2/4/91, The New Republic carried an article entitled, “Deadly Contagion: How we helped Iraq Get Germ Weapons.” After going into some detail about Iraq’s germ warfare production, the article said, “Against this backdrop, in late 1988 Senator John McCain’s office got wind of the activities of a non-profit company in Rockville, MD – the American Type Culture Collection. The firm has the nation’s leading collection of cultured diseases, and acts as a library of microbes for institutions all over the world. With a staff of 217, it curates and manages 1,000 different strains useful in public health programs. The ATCC sells approximately 130,000 cultures and ships orders to 50 nations, according to director Robert Stevenson. Iraq has been a customer for 20 years.
In January 1989, at the request of McCain, the State Department investigated ATCC’s tularemia sales to Iraq. “We got a clean bill from the State” says Stevenson. All of the material sent abroad, he insists, received the proper export permits from the Dept. of Commerce and a review committee from State and Defense.
But investigators from the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Consumer, and Monetary Affairs have questions about 17 shipments over the past 5 years of attenuated strains of various toxins and bacteria to Iraq’s Atomic Energy Commission.
Congressional suspicions were heightened by disclosure that the 17 export licenses were approved very rapidly – three or four days in most cases – and that some of the material desired by Iraq was relatively expensive: $8,000 in one instance.
[ED. NOTE: Readers should understand that once Iraq or any country obtains these deadly cultures, they can grow and eventually mass produce their own from these “starters”.]
According to Dr. Garth Nicolson, Iraq’s top cell microbiologist scientists, working at the University of Bagdad on Saddam’s germ warfare program (working with mycoplasmas) were trained in the U.S. – some by the Dept. of Defense. No wonder the Dept. of Defense wants to deny any knowledge of Iraq’s biological warfare program. We helped them develop it! The New Republic went on: There exists a certain sloppiness in sending known bio-warfare agents to a warring nation with a reputation for supporting terrorism.
The laid-back attitude of the government’s bio-technology fraternity extends to the U.S. Public Health Service. Last April, NBC broke the bizarre news that during the 1980’s, PHS’s Centers for Disease Control shipped deadly viruses via Express Mail to researchers in Iraq, Cuba, the Soviet Union, and China – all nations suspected of biological warfare research – ostensibly for public health reasons.
Remarkably, CDC Staffers expressed no fear that the exported agents (all- biohazard level 3 and 4 materials – the deadliest classification) would be used for germ warfare ‘because we know these people’ as CDC spokesperson Gayle Lloyd breezily said. She called any biological war scenario ‘farfetched’.
The New York Times (2/10/94) in an article entitled: “Senator Says U.S. Allowed Export of Lethal Viruses to Iraq in ’80’s”: A Democratic Senator accused the Commerce Dept. today of approving the export of lethal viruses to Iraq during the Reagan Administration, and said these viruses may have been used to make biological weapons that may have infected American soldiers during the Persian Gulf War.
Shipments of genetically weakened viruses have long been rumored but the
Senator, Donald Riegle of Michigan, said full-strength viruses had been shipped and could have been used in the creation of Iran’s biological weapons industry.
Senator Riegle, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, said the committee had recently obtained Commerce Dept. records of export licenses issued to the American Type Culture Collection, an organization in Rockville, MD, that acts as a nonprofit international clearing house for samples of viruses, which are stored at very low temperatures. The licenses were for the shipment of anthrax and at least four other viruses that can be used in medical research or in biological warfare, Senator Riegle said.
The January ’96 issue of Media Bypass carried an article by Sarah McClendon entitled, “Corporate, Foreign Policy Treachery Pointed Back at Americans.” McClendon wrote – Proof is building upwards, stronger than ever, that big U.S. corporations make the weapons that Iraq’s Saddam Hussein used to kill American soldiers in the Persian Gulf War. These corporations also provided the chemical and biological weapons that the Iraqis used to make thousands of surviving soldiers chronically ill.
Both the Bush and Clinton administrations Justice Departments agreed not to prosecute these big name American corporations for trading with the enemy. The building up of Iraq’s weapons, paid for by U.S. taxpayers, was conducted for years before the Persian Gulf War and after it started. Such trading with the enemy is tantamount to treason.
There is a sad irony about this case. Twenty-eight soldiers killed by SCUD missiles in the Iraq war came from the same neighborhood – Greenburg Latrobe – where the weapons were manufactured. SCUD launchers were put together in Connecticut, while other weapons came from the Pittsburgh area. There were a number of corporations in the Pittsburgh area that were making weapons for Saddam Hussein.
These corporations were, according to Gastor’s investigations, tied to the Brown Brothers Harriman Bank, which was being managed by President Bush’s father, the late Senator Prescott Bush. It had been the same way in World Wars I and II, when the U.S. corporations supplied the Germans, the United States’ enemy, with guns and supplies, according to proof obtained by former Hoover Institute researcher and author Antony Sutton.
How was this cover-up of the manufacture of weapons for Iraq arranged in the U.S.? Bush arranged for 70% of the policy makers in the Justice Dept. to remain in their jobs when the transition from Bush to Clinton took place. They took a lower pay scale, but stayed in control. These holdovers are running the Justice Dept. today. Clinton has been told about this, but somehow he does not seem to act on the information Atty. Gen. Reno said, when told about this, that she did not have the money to fire all these people.
McClendon also wrote about a $5 billion loan to Iraq from the BNL Italian Bank of Rome which was guaranteed by U.S. taxpayers through the Dept. of Agriculture’s Commodity Credit Corp. Iraq turned this loan into Letters of Credit with which it bought $5 billion in weapons (including biologicals and SCUDS from the U.S.) and when Iraq later defaulted on the loan, the U.S. taxpayer essentially paid the bill for weapons that later were shot back at U.S. soldiers.
On February 9, 1994, Senator Don Riegle, Jr. (D-MI, now retired) then head of the Senate Banking Committee, issued a lengthy statement (partially reproduced below):
U.S. ARMING IRAQ:
BIolOGICAL AGENT EXPORTS
PRIOR TO THE GULF WAR
On September 9, 1993, I released a report which suggested that “Gulf War Syndrome”, that disabling and sometimes fatal collection of illnesses afflicting thousands of veterans with debilitating muscle and joint pain, memory loss, intestinal and heart problems, twitching, rashes, and sores, could have resulted from exposure to chemical and biiological warfare agents, either from direct exposure or from the downwind fallout of the coalition bombings of Iraq.
My initial inquiry focused on exposure to chemical agents, due to the many reports of chemical alarms sounding before and during the war and the compelling accounts of eyewitnesses to events which appear to be best explained as chemical agent attacks. Since that time, a number of researchers have contacted my office with a more disturbing proposal.
These researchers believe that the symptoms experienced by these veterans may be the result not only of exposure to chemical warfare agents and other environmental hazards, but possibly also as a result of exposure to biiological warfare agents.
This is an extremely serious issue with serious consequences, but it may explain the alarming and growing evidence that the illness appears to be spreading to the spouses and children of the affected veterans.
All government agencies and institutions including the U.S. Congress, have a responsibility to uncover every available lead which might assist medical researchers in discovering the nature and scope of these illnesses. This Administration must defend the health and well-being of its people, especially those who have been willing to lay down their lives for the United States. It has been nearly three years since these young men and women began suffering, and too many have died.
The Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, which I chair, has oversight responsibility for the Export Administration Act. Pursuant to this Act, Committee staff contacted the U.S. Dept. of Commerce and requested information on the export of biological materials to Iraq during the years prior to the Gulf War.
After receiving that information, we contacted a principal supplier of these materials to determine what, if any, materials were exported to Iraq which might have contributed to an offensive or defensive biological warfare program.
Records available from the supplier for the period from 1985 until the present show that during this period, pathogenic, meaning “disease producing”, toxigenic, meaning “poisonous”, and other materials, were exported to Iraq pursuant to application and licensing by the U.S. Dept. of Commerce. Records prior to 1985 were not available, according to the supplier.
These exported biological materials were not attenuated or weakened and were capable of reproduction. Thus, from at least 1985 through 1989, the U.S. government approved the sale of quantities of potentially lethal biological agents that could have been cultured or grown in large quantities in an Iraqi biological warfare program.
I find it especially troubling that, according to the supplier’s records, these materials were requested by and sent to Iraqi government agencies, including the Iraq Atomic Energy Commission, the Iraq Ministry of Higher Education, the State Company for Drug Industries, and the Ministry of Trade.
While there may be legitimate needs for pathogens in medical research, closer scrutiny should be exercised in approving exports of materials to countries known or suspected of having active and aggressive biological warfare programs.
Iraq has long been suspected of conducting biological warfare research, in addition to its chemical and nuclear warfare research programs.
Indeed, according to the Dept. of Defense’s own report to Congress on the Conduct of the Persian Gulf War, written in 1992: By the time of the invasion of Kuwait, Iraq has developed biological weapons. Its advanced and aggressive biological warfare program was the most advanced in the Arab world…[The] program probably began in the late 1970’s and concentrated on the development of two agents – botulinum toxin and anthrax bacteria… Large scale production of these agents began in 1989 at four facilities near Bagdad. Delivery means for biological agents ranged from simple aerial bombs and artillery rockets to surface to surface missiles. [ED. NOTE: the Scud and Frog missiles].
After the war, U.N. inspectors found four facilities involved in biological warfare-related research. While no evidence of production was noted, at least one of these facilities could produce up to 50 gallons of biological agents each week. The U.S. government approved the export of materials which could have been used to support such a program.
Included in these approved sales are the following biological materials which have been considered by various nations for use in war, with their associated disease symptoms:
Bacillus Anthracis (bas-sil-us ann-thra-sis) or anthrax is disease-producing bacteria which was identified by the Dept. of Defense in “The Conduct of the Persian Gulf War: Final Report to Congress” as being a major component in the Iraqi biological warfare program. Anthrax is an often-fatal infectious disease due to ingestion of spores; it begins abruptly with high fever, difficulty in breathing, and chest pain. The disease eventually results in septicemia, or blood poisoning, and the mortality rate is high. Once septicemia is advanced, antibiotic treatment may prove useless, probably because the exotoxins remain, despite the death of the bacteria.
Clostridium Botulinum (claws-tri-dee-um botch-you-lin-um), a bacterial source of botulinum toxin, causes vomiting, constipation, thirst, general weakness, headache, fever, dizziness, double vision, dilation of pupils, paralysis of the muscles involving swallowing and is often fatal.
Histoplama Capsulatum (his-toe-plazma cap-sul-a-tum) causes a disease superficially resembling tuberculosis that may cause pneumonia, enlargement of the liver and spleen, anemia or an influenza-like illness and an acute inflammatory skin disease marked by tender red nodules, usually on the shins. Reactivated infection usually involves the lungs, brain and spinal membranes, heart, peritoneum, and adrenals.
Brucella Melitensis (brew-cell-a mel-it-ten-sis), a bacteria which can cause chronic fatigue, loss of appetite, profuse sweating when at rest, pain in joints and muscles, insomnia, nausea, and can result in damage to major organs.
Clostridium perfringens (claws-tri-dee-um per-frin-jens) is a highly toxic bacteria which causes gas gangrene. The bacteria produce toxins that move along muscle bundles, killing cells and producing necrotic tissue that is favorable for future growth. Eventually, these toxins and bacteria enter the bloodstream and cause a systemic illness.
In addition, several shipments of E. Coli (cole-eye) and genetic materials, human and bacterial DNA, were shipped directly to the Iraq Atomic Energy Commission. I offer this and other specific information on the nature of the materials exported for the use of medical researchers seeking to diagnose and treat the affected veterans and their families.
Today, I am asking the Dept. of Defense and Dept. of Veterans Affairs to establish a disability compensation rating for Gulf War veterans consistent with the true extent of their disability and regardless of the ability to arrive at a definitive diagnosis.
I am also asking the Dept. of Health and Human Services, the Dept. of Veterans Affairs, and the Dept. of Defense, and their newly formed task force addressing this issue, to study the reported transmission of these illness to the spouses and children of these veterans, and to assess what, if any, public health hazard might exist.
I am asking that the Secretaries of each of these Departments respond to these concerns not later than March 31, 1994.
Over the next several months, the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs will be reviewing the Export Administration Act, which is due for reauthorization. As Chairman of this Committee, I will call hearings to examine the policies that led to the export of these materials as well as the consequences of these policies.
I assure the veterans, their families, and the people of the United States that the policy under which these licenses were granted will be examined and strengthened. The defense of the United States should not be undermined by export policies that allow this government to assist any pariah nation, such as Iraq, in the furtherance of nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons programs.
I ask that the remainder of my statement be inserted into the record as if read and that supporting attachments be inserted into the record in the appropriate place.
The following is detailed listing of biological materials, provided by the American Type Culture Collection, which were exported to agencies of the government of Iraq pursuant to the issuance of an export license by the U.S. Commerce Dept. (Omitted from this Internet Transmission – available from the original report or by FAX request – see below).
[ED. NOTE: These are only the unclassified biological agents sold by the U.S. to Saddam with blessing of the Commerce Dept. There were more, which are classified, and are still kept secret! (See Riegle Report regarding the U.S. sale of Anthrax and Clostridium Botulinum to Iraq)]
[ED.NOTE: Senator Riegle abruptly retired from the Senate in 1994 and unfortunately, his Republican successor Alan Simpson (R-WY) has put the issue on the back burner. The Republicans cannot be expected to pursue the issue since Republican leaders such as George Bush and James Baker III were up to their eyeballs in the illegal biological sales. Repeat: The Republican leadership engineered these illegal sales. Both Bush and Baker are believed to have financial interests in one or more of the U.S. companies who made and sold the biologicals to Saddam. This Iraq/Germgate scandal could be 100 times bigger than the Whitewater scandal. Is this why the Republican leadership has refused to push White- water-gate to its conclusion – because they have a far larger scandal involving criminal activities on the part of top Republicans having over their own heads? Is this why the Dept. of Defense is covering up the use of biologicals against U.S. troops in Desert Storm and stonewalling the thousands of sick and dying vets? It is noteworthy that most of the Congressmen and Senators who have spoken out against the U.S. biologicals sales and the government coverup of GWI to date are Democrats – Sen. Don Riegle (D-MI); Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV); Sen Richard Shelby (D-AL); Rep. Patricia Schroeder (D-CO); Rep. Glen Browder (D-AL); and Rep. Lane Evans (D-IL). Three Republican Congressmen who have taken an interest in Gulf War Illness and Dept. of Defense cover-up are: Rep. Christopher Shays (R-CT); Rep. J. C. Watts (R-OK); and Rep. Bernie Sanders (Ind.-VT). All of these Democrat and Republican legislators should be strongly encouraged to pursue this issue with a vengeance].
LAWSUITS BY VETERANS
The Los Angeles Times (6/8/96) carried an article entitled: “Veterans Sue U.S. Firms, Blame Them for Desert Storm Disabilities”, which described how 26 veterans are seeking more than $1 billion in a class-action lawsuit against eleven U.S. producers of germ warfare agents sold to Saddam. The firms were accused in the suit of “manufacturing biological compounds that they knew were ‘unreasonably dangerous’ and of conducting business in such a way that an outlaw country like Iraq could aquifer the compounds and use them to make chemical and biological weapons.”
One of the defendants, Rhone-Poulenc, is headquartered in Shelton, CT, and has a plant near Houston. Another defendant, according to Dr. Garth Nicolson, is Tanox Biosystems, which was involved with the Texas Department of Corrections at its Huntsville, TX State Prison Facility (on behalf of the Dept. of Defense) in testing Mycoplasma fermentans (incognitus) on death row inmates. The disease spread to the general prison population, to the guards, and has now infected 350 people (non-military) in Huntsville, TX general population. Many of these individuals were diagnosed by environmental physicians as have GWI before the Gulf War!
Tanox Biosystems, which had Army contracts to study mycoplasma (according to their own admission in the publication, Gene) is rumored to be partly owned by former Bush Secretary of State James Baker III – who is believed to have been heavily involved in the U.S. sales of the biologicals to Iraq. Was this a conflict of interest? Was it illegal? Was it profitable? Tanox is also being sued by the Gulf Storm vets.
(ED. NOTE: Did Bush, Baker and their cohorts in the Commerce and Defense Dept. fail to read the Geneva Convention Regulations of 1972 (to which America and Iraq were signatories) which makes it illegal to make, experiment with, distribute, or sell germ warfare agents? It appears that our government leaders simply circumvented that treaty by farming out their germ warfare research and development to private firms and university medical research groups like Baylor College of Medicine and M. D. Anderson Cancer Center – kind of like the CIA-front firms which have long operated all over the country. Some of the firms may indeed have been CIA fronts! On 8/9/96, Dr. Garth Nicolson told this writer that there are 120 American universities working on various facets of biological warfare weapons!]
THE BOTTOM liNE:
As Joyce Riley has said: “The horrible secret of America’s worst atrocity is out; our servicemen and women were exposed to deadly chemical and biological agents supplied to our enemies by our own government. The bottom line is that we made them here, we sold them to Iraq with full knowledge, and then we sent our troops into harm’s way with no protection when our government knew what would be fired at them. That ought to be an outrage to every American.”
[ED. NOTE l: The Riegle Report, by a prominent former U.S. Senator, is a damning indictment of the U.S. government’s role in building up our enemies and placing our troops in grave and unnecessary danger! Senator Riegle’s courageous efforts on this issue, halted in 1994 with his sudden retirement, are now sorely missed. A copy of the entire Riegle Report can be obtained through the American Gulf War Veterans Association in Houston. Every writer, researcher, or legislator interested in this subject should obtain and study a copy].
This entire report is available for $5 from McAlvany Intelligence Advisor, P. O. Box 84904, Phoenix, AZ 85071 Phone 1-800-528-0559. The Copyright has been lifted from this report so that it can be distributed widely – especially to Gulf War Veterans, physicians and health care providers.