November 6, 2002 14:16

Iraqi Coverage Fails to Address Health Risks

By Robert L. McMahon

The U.S. Army has a new primer for chemical warfare, but has yet to train our troops to a new standard to match it. Call this the “stealth” news issue of 2002: an approaching scandal that no one in the mainstream news media seems able to detect.

In several recent articles, I have focused on the unique nature of this new form of warfare looming on the horizon as we prepare to confront Iraq (see “Gulf Veterans: Just How Short is Our Memory?” DefenseWatch, Oct. 9, 2002). If the health problems afflicting our veterans from the first Gulf War are any indication, we should be prepared for a toxic environment like no other.

Let's compare: The Korean War lasted three years and claimed over 50,000 American lives, while in Gulf War I we sustained less than 150 fatalities and 457 wounded during the famed 100-hour ground campaign. But today, the number of Gulf War veterans receiving medical benefits – 159,238 – is nearly equal to the 172,600 Korean War veterans claiming medical benefits."

The U.S. military is preparing to attack a regime that is – according to military experts – loaded to the gills with all sorts of dangerous chemical and biological weapons, and possibly even nukes.

It is a national outrage that there been essentially no in-depth coverage in the mainstream news media on the poor state of readiness of our troops to survive and fight on a contaminated battlefield. Where are the exposes on the inadequacy of MOPP suits, gas masks and anthrax vaccine programs, to name but a few of the vital issues at stake?

Rather than examining this critical issue with all of the investigative assets that they can bring to bear, the national newspapers and TV networks instead have been fixated on the Washington, D.C. serial gunmen and the “horse race” dynamics of the 2002 midterm congressional elections.

When they do take the time to report on the coming conflict, many commentators cite the rapid collapse of organized Iraqi resistance to allied forces in the 1991 Gulf War as an example of things to come. However, if Saddam Hussein believes that we are coming to get him and his clan instead of tolerating him remaining in power as we did in 1991, where is the downside deterring him from unleashing every weapon in his arsenal?

The news media’s abdication on covering the NBC threat clearly comes as a result of that profession’s overall ignorance of military affairs.

The Pentagon’s recent announcement of a “boot camp” program for reporters desiring to cover the military confirms this abysmal trend. Spending a week doing calisthenics and receiving a powerpoint lecture on military rank structure will hardly prepare journalists for the chaos of an Iraqi war, nor will it increase their knowledge to a sufficient level that they can see through the fog of Pentagon rhetoric that cloaks our lack of readiness for chem/bio defense.

What the reporters should have been doing for months – if not years already – is to have been living and training with the troops while they prepared at the unit level. Soldiers, especially line troops, are nothing if not masters at hitting an issue squarely on its head and they would be the first to confirm the flaws in our NBC defenses.

But that form of dedicated journalism disappeared a long time ago.

Meanwhile, the erratic “debate” over Iraq misses the point. We have successfully contained Saddam Hussein for the past two decades, and we can keep him contained indefinitely. Before we go and send the younger brothers and sisters of the Gulf War off to fight Gulf War Part II, it is imperative that we have a full airing on the U.S. military’s lack of chem/bio defense capabilities.

There is a genuine possibility that if we go in there with our current equipment and levels of training, our troops going to suffer massive fatalities and tens of thousands of walking wounded for years to come.

Of course, everyone in the mainstream U.S. news media will be shocked and amazed should that dire scenario occur.

Robert L. McMahon is President of the Soldiers for the Truth Foundation. He can be reached at mcmahonr1@rcn.com