THE SILENT TREATMENT

By Mark Thompson/Washington

What's the truth about Persian Gulf War syndrome, and is the Pentagon guilty of a cover-up? In recent weeks, two of the war's heroes, generals Colin Powell and Norman Schwarzkopf, have said they know of no evidence that U.S. troops were exposed to chemical weapons during the conflict that could have made them sick. But there are new indications that the generals, and even a Nobel prizewinning scientist hired by the Pentagon to look into the matter, were not told the full story. Since June 21 of this year, Defense officials have begun to suggest that the syndrome could be linked to troops' coming into contact with traces of sarin and other nerve agents. Here are the facts to date:

What is Gulf War syndrome?

It's a collection of symptoms, including chronic fatigue, rashes, headaches, joint pain, digestive problems and difficulty concentrating. Veterans have had babies born with twisted limbs, congestive heart failure and missing organs--problems they blame on their service in the gulf.

How many people have it?

About 70,000 U.S. troops among the 697,000 who served in the Middle East during the Gulf War have complained to either the Pentagon or the Department of Veterans Affairs that they are suffering from one or more of the symptoms. They exhibit such symptoms at a much higher rate than soldiers who didn't serve in the theater. Up until now, they do not appear to be dying at a higher rate.

Were they all in the same place during the Gulf War?

There is little correlation between ill soldiers and where they served during the war. While certain units have more ailing members than others, some investigators see that as evidence of the stress shared by members of those units--combat, being away from home and family, and poor living conditions. The main concentration seems to be among reservists, who account for nearly half of those reporting the problem but made up only 17% of the troops serving there. The Pentagon attributes this discrepancy to the reluctance of active-duty soldiers to complain for fear of losing their jobs in a shrinking military, on the reservists' greater age and on the fact that the war disrupted their lives more severely than those of active-duty troops.

Are residents of the region and soldiers from other nations reporting similar ills?

The Kuwaitis and Saudis insist they are not, but authoritarian states are unlikely to encourage such disclosures from their citizens. Most of the complaints come from American and British veterans, joined in smaller numbers by Canadians, Czechs and Slovaks. Last week Britain appointed an independent panel to study claims from about 1,000 veterans that they are suffering from the syndrome. In Washington, U.S. veterans testified again last week about their health problems before a congressional subcommittee.

What do the medical experts say is the most likely cause of Gulf War syndrome?

No single cause has been identified. It had long been Pentagon doctrine that if a soldier didn't immediately become sick from chemical weapons, he or she would never suffer any adverse effects from them. But recently the Pentagon has conceded there is little proof for that theory, and that low-level exposure, perhaps combined with other environmental or medical factors, may have played a key role in triggering the problem years after exposure.

Is there one event that may have been responsible for engendering the syndrome?

The Pentagon believes up to 20,000 U.S. troops may have been exposed to such poisons when they destroyed chemical weapons at the huge Kamisiyah depot in southern Iraq. But one leading investigator, James Tuite, says the emphasis on Kamisiyah is just the Pentagon's way of denying the scope of the problem. Tuite, who did a ground-breaking Senate study on the topic in 1993, believes soldiers are ill because of widespread allied attacks on Iraq's chemical-weapons factories and depots during the 39-day air war that began Jan. 16, 1991. During that assault, the U.S.-led alliance destroyed 75% of Iraq's chemical-weapons production capability, along with 21 chemical-weapons storage sites. But the Pentagon has said the timing and methods of its pinpoint attacks minimized the spread of the poison bombed by the allies. And it says there were no reports of massive Iraqi casualties near the chemical-weapons targets.

What evidence does Tuite have?

Czech chemical-weapons experts, deployed along the Saudi-Iraqi border, detected sarin and mustard gas on three occasions in the war's opening days. Chemical-weapons alarms sounded in U.S., British and French units at the same time. Tuite's correlation of the detections and of satellite weather photographs taken at the time suggests that the tons of nerve agent atomized in the allied strikes rose in a huge thermal plume that became stuck behind a stationary weather front. He argues that this invisible cloud drifted south over the entire theater, gently sprinkling the soldiers with a poisonous rain. The Pentagon has disputed his theory, arguing any fallout was too low to harm U.S. troops. But some outsiders ask how the Pentagon can reach that conclusion when it concedes it doesn't know the minimal amounts required for such poisons to cause long-term damage.

What's the significance of all the chemical-weapons alarms sounded during the war?

Thousands sounded during the war, and most were dismissed as false alarms. But in some ways, it doesn't matter if they were false or not because, as designed, the equipment was not sensitive enough to detect the kind of chemical danger Tuite believes exists at very low levels. At least some in the Army apparently agree, because chemical detectors used by Army workers who handle the poisons are calibrated to detect far smaller doses of chemical weapons than those used by troops on the battlefield.

Is the Pentagon hiding something?

It sure looks that way. Pentagon officials say most of the combat diaries of significant events kept by the U.S. Central Command at General Schwarzkopf's headquarters--classified documents, no less--are missing, including those of the eight-day span during which U.S. troops destroyed the chemical-weapons stockpiles at Kamisiyah. (The logs could be reconstructed from the 30 million documents written by individual units under Schwarzkopf's command, but that would take years.) In the meantime, the Pentagon's acknowledgment that U.S. troops may have been exposed came only under pressure: the June 21 Kamisiyah announcement, for example, was made four days before a soldier presented Congress with a videotape showing U.S. troops blowing up a chemical-weapons bunker. There is little evidence to support claims the Pentagon actively withheld information about chemical weapons during the war. But in April 1992, the Pentagon declared in its official history that Iraqi forces had never used such weapons against U.S. troops. Having asserted that, the Defense Department has seemed uninterested--until recently--in pursuing contrary claims.

Who is paying the soldiers' medical bills?

The taxpayers are. The Veterans Affairs Department and the Pentagon are providing free medical help to any veteran who believes he or she is suffering from Gulf War syndrome. Congress has authorized such aid without the veterans' having to prove, as is usually the case, that their ailment is connected to their military service.

What is the U.S. government doing about the problem now?

The Pentagon is enlarging its staff studying the issue from 12 to 110. About $15 million is being spent on the first major study of the long-term impact of low levels of chemical weapons on humans.

What is likely to happen?

If what had been acceptable trace levels of chemical agents in the battlefield are found to be harmful, the U.S. military will have to revamp the way it protects its forces against even those tiny amounts. It would be particularly tragic if the symptoms are ultimately linked to Kamisiyah or fallout from the allied bombing; that would mean that not only did "friendly fire" account for nearly 25% of the Pentagon's 146 battlefield deaths, but also that successful allied actions were responsible for the war's most persistent and haunting pain.