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http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/nm/20021009/sc_nm/arms_usa_experiments_dc Science - Reuters US Conducted Germ Warfare Tests During Cold War Wed Oct 9,10:02 AM ET By Charles Aldinger WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Newly-declassified Pentagon reports acknowledge that the United States used deadly chemical and biological warfare agents during Cold War military tests on American soil and in Britain and Canada, U.S. defense officials said on Wednesday. The reports on tests between 1962 and 1971 to determine the vulnerability of troops to Sarin and VX nerve agents and other weapons of mass destruction were being sent to Congress and would be discussed at a Pentagon briefing later on Monday, according to the officials, who asked not to be identified. The reports were an acknowledgement of much wider Cold War testing of toxic arms involving U.S. forces than earlier admitted by the Pentagon. Wednesday's latest in a series of "fact sheets," released in response to veterans' health complaints, follow reports earlier this year on 1960s warship vulnerability tests using Sarin and VX against U.S. Navy ships and crews in the Pacific Ocean The reports on the U.S. land tests in Alaska, Hawaii, Maryland and Florida did not all involve deadly agents and were also used to learn how climate and a battle environment would affect the use of such arms, officials said. The release comes as international tension is growing over U.S. consideration of a possible military invasion of Iraq to end what Washington charges are its weapons of mass destruction. Iraq flatly denies having such weapons programs. INCLUDED BRITISH, CANADIAN TESTS U.S. defense officials said the documents showed that tests conducted with the Canadian government used VX and tests in Britain used Sarin. Within minutes, Sarin can trigger symptoms including difficult breathing, nausea, jerking, staggering, loss of bladder-bowel control and death. Extremely lethal VX is an oily liquid that is tasteless and odorless and considered one of the most deadly agents ever made by man. With severe exposure to the skin or lungs, death usually occurs within 10 to 15 minutes. The U.S. Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs are working to identify at least 5,000 people believed to have participated in the land and sea tests. Meanwhile, the U.S. Congress has scheduled hearings this week into the test reports and government responsibility to any veterans made ill by the experiments. The defense officials told Reuters that investigations indicated that no lethal agents in the tests involving troops were dispersed to the general population in the U.S. tests on land in Alaska, Hawaii and Maryland. But they confirmed a New York Times report that some milder substances did escape into the air with the dispersing of a plant fungus in an area of Florida, a bacteria in Hawaii and a mild chemical irritant in remote Alaskan wilderness. "We are taking this action now because we do care about veterans and we do care about service members and their health and any potential ill health effects that might have resulted from their service to their country," the Defense Secretary for Health Affairs, William Winkenwerder, told The New York Times. The newspaper quoted defense officials as saying that military and medical investigators were studying reports on 35 additional tests that might have been conducted with live chemical and biological agents during the same period, but whose results remain classified. The investigation is going slowly because the records are on paper, stored at Fort Douglas in Utah, The New York Times said. In the reports issued in May involving warships, the Pentagon gave no indication that any crews of the ships and military tugs used in the experiments had suffered illness from the experiments. ____________________ http://www.yahoo.com __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Faith Hill - Exclusive Performances, Videos & More http://faith.yahoo.com --------------------------- ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST ==^================================================================ This email was sent to: [email protected] EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.bacIlu Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
