© Eliana Aponte/Reuters
U.S. Marines carry an injured colleague to a helicopter near the city of Falluja, November 10, 2004.
U.S. Marines carry an injured colleague to a helicopter near the city of Falluja, November 10, 2004.
A quarter of a century later, the troops nearest the explosions are dying of brain cancer at two to three times the rate of those who were farther away. Others have lung cancer or debilitating chronic diseases, and pain.
More complications lie ahead.
According to Dr. Linda Chao, a neurologist at the University of California Medical School in San Francisco, "Because part of their brains, the hippocampus, has shrunk, they're at greater risk for Alzheimer's and other degenerative diseases."
At first, the DOD was adamant: No troops were exposed.
"No information...indicates that chemical or biological weapons were used in the Persian Gulf," wrote Secretary of Defense William Perry and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs John Shalikashvili in a 1994 memo to 20,000 Desert Storm veterans. Strictly speaking, they were right: No weapons were used. The nerve agent sarin was in the fallout from the U.S. bombing or detonating of Iraq's weapons sites.
Perry and Shalikashvili knew.
Comment: The above is an example of what happens when sites that actually have chemical weapons stored in them are bombed. The result is widespread dispersal of said agents into the air and surrounding area, poisoning anyone that is exposed. So far there have been no reports of people being poisoned as a result of the US missile strikes on the facilities in Syria. It stands to reason then, that there were no chemical weapons located at the targeted areas, despite the allegations.