II. SUMMARY
The story of Khamisiyah has three parts:
- United States military operations (including demolitions)
at Khamisiyah;
- United Nations Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM)
inspections of Khamisiyah, which brought to light the presence of chemical weapons at
various locations on and around the site; and
- The US government response to mounting indications that US
soldiers may have destroyed chemical munitions at Khamisiyahthe details of what the
Department of Defense knew, when it knew them, and the actions it has taken.
A. United States Military Operations at Khamisiyah
Immediately following the end of Operation
Desert Storm, US Army units occupied an area in southeastern Iraq that encompassed
Khamisiyah (also known then as the Tall al Lahm Ammunition Storage Area). Soldiers of the
Armys XVIII Airborne Corps conducted two large-scale demolition operations to
destroy the munitions and facilities around Khamisiyah:
- March 4, 1991. Soldiers destroyed 37 large
ammunition bunkers. Later, Iraq declared that one of these, Bunker 73, had contained
2,160 chemical warfare agent-filled rockets.
- March 10, 1991. Soldiers destroyed approximately
40 additional ammunition bunkers and 45 warehouses. In an open-air location outside the
Khamisiyah Ammunition Supply Point (ASP) now known as "the Pit," soldiers also
set charges to approximately 1,250 rockets, many of which UNSCOM later found had contained
chemical warfare agent.
Soldiers also conducted numerous
demolitions to destroy smaller caches of munitions and to test techniques for destroying
bunkers. Demolition operations continued in the Khamisiyah area through the middle of
April 1991. The soldiers conducting reconnaissance and completing the inventories
before these demolitions were confident that they had destroyed only conventional
munitions.
Throughout the US occupation of
Khamisiyah, including the demolition period, no reports were made of chemical warfare
agent detections. Nor were there reports of anyonesoldier or
civilianexperiencing symptoms consistent with chemical warfare agent exposure.
B. United Nations Special Commission on Iraq Inspections at
Khamisiyah
In October 1991, March 1992,
May 1996, and in 1998, UNSCOM inspected Khamisiyah. In October 1991, Iraqi
officials led UNSCOM inspectors to three sites that had contained chemical weapons (Figure 2):
- Bunker 73, inside the Khamisiyah ASP;
- The area referred to as the Pit, outside the southeast
corner of the Khamisiyah ASP; and
- An above-ground storage area, approximately 3 kilometers
from the Khamisiyah ASP.
Figure
2. Site locations shown to UNSCOM
Bunker 73. During the
1991 inspection, Iraq claimed that chemical munitions found in the Pit had been salvaged
from Bunker 73 and that Coalition forces had destroyed the bunker. UNSCOM could not
determine if Bunker 73 contained chemical warfare agents at this time because damaged
munitions made it too dangerous to get close enough to sample or take CAM readings.
However, on a return visit to the site in May 1996, UNSCOM conclusively determined
that debris (e.g., burster tubes, fill plugs, and plastic inserts) in the rubble of
Bunker 73 was characteristic of chemical munitions.
The Pit. In October 1991,
UNSCOM inspectors found several hundred 122mm rockets that appeared to have been bulldozed
and placed into piles in an excavated area southeast of the main ASP. This area became
known as "the Pit." The UNSCOM investigation showed that the intact rockets
contained the chemical warfare agents sarin and cyclosarin. During a subsequent visit in
March 1992, UNSCOM ordered Iraq to destroy about 500 leaking rockets near the Pit,
and ship the remaining rockets to Al Muthanna, Iraq, for destruction. UNSCOM supervised
Iraqi destruction of a total of approximately 782 rockets at the Pit and Al Muthanna.
Above-ground storage area. Iraq
also showed the UNSCOM team an above-ground storage site about 3 kilometers west of the
Khamisiyah ASP that contained 6,323 intact 155mm artillery shells, one of which was
leaking mustard agent. No evidence exists that any Coalition forces had been to this site.
Again, UNSCOM ordered Iraq to ship these rounds to the destruction facility at
Al Muthanna.
In November 1991, US intelligence and
DoD became aware of the UNSCOM findings, but at the time, the information did not result
in identifying which, if any, US troops participated in the Khamisiyah demolition
activities. The lack of US reports of chemical weapons, combined with Iraqs less
than full compliance with UNSCOM, led to doubts about Iraqs claims that chemical
weapons had been at the site when the demolition occurred.
C. The United States Government Response Regarding Illnesses
of Gulf War Veterans
The US government did not immediately make
the connection between the chemical munitions found by UNSCOM at Khamisiyah and US
demolitions operations there. The following is a chronology of the government response.
- February 1994 - A request from Congressman Browder to
the United Nations (UN) for any reports about chemical weapons found in Iraq after the
Gulf War kindled DoD interest in Khamisiyah. The United Nations responded in
April 1994 with a letter that listed Khamisiyah along with other chemical weapons sites.
- May 1994 - During hearings before the Senate Banking,
Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, DoD and Intelligence Community witnesses admitted
that UNSCOM found chemical weapons at a location at the time of UNSCOM inspections, but
these witnesses were unable to confirm that any US troops were at the site.
- March 1995 - As a result of presidential concerns and
the concerns of two Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) employees, the CIA began a
reexamination of relevant intelligence.
- June 1995 - DoD formed the Persian Gulf Illnesses
Investigation Team (later shortened to Persian Gulf Investigation Team (PGIT)) that by
October had identified some of the US forces that had occupied the area around Khamisiyah
during the Gulf War, including the 37th Engineer Battalion.
- August 1995 - President Clinton created the
Presidential Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans Illnesses.
- May 1996 - The CIA and PGIT acknowledged at a
Presidential Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans Illnesses meeting the
possibility that US soldiers destroyed munitions at Khamisiyah.
- June 1996 - DoD confirmed publicly that "US
soldiers from the 37th Engineer Battalion destroyed ammunition bunkers [at
Khamisiyah] in early March 1991 ... It now appears that one of these destroyed bunkers
contained chemical weapons."
- October 1996 - Deputy Secretary of Defense sent
memorandum to 21,000 veterans who had been identified as being within 50 kilometers of
Khamisiyah.
- November 1996 - The Secretary of Defense established
the Office of the Special Assistant for Gulf War Illnesses (hereafter referred to as the
Office of the Special Assistant) to focus ongoing DoD investigations and expand the
investigation into Gulf War veterans complaints of undiagnosed illnesses.
- January 1997 - The Deputy Secretary of Defense sent
letters with a survey attached to veterans saying that chemical weapons had been present
at Khamisiyah when the demolitions occured and urging them to call the Persian Gulf
Incident Hotline with any additional information they may have about the Khamisiyah
incident.
- May 1997 - DoD and CIA conducted open field demolition
tests on 122mm rockets at Dugway Proving Ground, Utah, to determine how chemical warfare
agents in Iraqi rockets might have been released by demolitions at Khamisiyah.
- July 1997 - DoD and CIA jointly announced the results
of the dispersion modeling for Khamisiyah. Given the unit locations available then, the
modeling indicated a hazard area where some 99,000 veterans may have been exposed to low
levels of nerve agent. DoD sent written notices to two categories of
veterans: those in the potential hazard area (approximately 99,000) and those who
had received the Deputy Secretary of Defense's letter and survey but were not in the
potential hazard area (approximately 10,000).
- December 1997 - The Department of the Army Inspector
Generals "Inquiry into Demolition of Iraq Ammunition" found no empirical
evidence that chemical munitions or agents were present at the time of the demolition
operations.
- January 1998 - President Clinton created the
Presidential Special Oversight Board for the Department of Defense Investigations of Gulf
War Chemical and Biological Incidents to provide recommendations based on its review of
Department of Defense investigations into possible detections of, and exposures to,
chemical or biological weapons agents, and environmental and other factors that may have
contributed to Gulf War Illnesses.
- January 2000 - DoD completed the remodeling and
revised the 1997 hazard areas.
The early work of the Office of the
Special Assistant placed an emphasis on researching US military operations at Khamisiyah.
On February 21, 1997, we published the first Khamisiyah case narrative. The
narrative provided important insights into what actually took place and which US military
units were involved. We intensified our efforts to identify and contact the thousands of
soldiers potentially involved, and began detailed computer modeling of events in the
spring and summer of 1997 to determine the size and path of the potential hazard area
created by demolition activities in the Pit. The modeling resulted in DoD sending
notification letters to approximately 99,000 veterans. It is important to note that
the modeling process is based on computer simulations and not empirical data.
Results, although based on best science, are predictions and should be evaluated
carefully.
Modeling refinements continued through
1998 and 1999. Some of the more significant refinements included revision of
meteorological models, an updated CIA estimate of how much chemical warfare agent was
released, addition of deposition and decay to the models and consideration of toxicity of
both sarin and cyclosarin in the models. The modeling team completed remodeling the
Khamisiyah Pit demolition in January 2000 that resulted in redefined potential hazard
areas. DoD identified 100,923 veterans in the potential hazard areas who possibly were
exposed to low levels of nerve agent. Our fundamental modeling methodology has not changed
since 1997. In 2000, like 1997, we used the outer boundaries of the union of the results
from different models to define the potential hazard area. This conservative approach gave
us greater assurance of identifying US units in the potential hazard area. The
veterans notification process is ongoing.
The first narrative left the following
five questions for follow-up research:
- How many chemical warfare munitions were present in
Bunker 73 and the Pit at the time of the US demolition operations?
- Were two separate groups working at the Pit on
March 10, 1991?
- Was there an additional demolition of munitions in the Pit
on March 12, 1991?
- Who were the 15 to 20 engineers assigned to assist the
explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) noncommissioned officer in the Pit on March 10
or 12, 1991?
- What were the weather conditions on the day(s) of the Pit
demolition(s)?
This updated narrative includes
significant additional information that enabled the Office of the Special Assistant to
address each of these five questions and to better understand the effect of the demolition
operations on US soldiers.
Additionally, the updated narrative
addresses, and assesses, two more questions:
- Did US forces destroy chemical warfare weapons stored at
Khamisiyah?
- Were US forces exposed to nerve agents as a result of
demolition activities?
This narrative includes the following
conclusions:
- Chemical munitions were definitely present at three
locations at Khamisiyah.
- US soldiers definitely destroyed manybut not
allof the chemical rockets at Khamisiyah.
- Some US ground forces were likely exposed to very low
levels of nerve agent from the demolition of rockets in the Pit on
March 10, 1991.
- It is unlikely US ground forces were exposed to chemical warfare agent from the Bunker
73 demolition on March 4, 1991.
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