ternal panels of experts have echoed those recommendations to standardize and integrate service-specific protocols and systems. The 1998 Defense Authorization Act directed the Department to implement many of the recommended improvements to medical tracking and disease prevention. Witnesses today will describe substantial progress in applying the lessons learned during Operation Desert Storm about force health protection, but questions remain whether the ambitious plans and proposals of peacetime will be able to pierce the fog of war and yield the detailed real-time information needed to assess health effects after the battle. Do the pre and postdeployment questionnaires now being administered meet the statutory mandate for medical examinations? Will the brief, hastily administered surveys capture the data required by DOD and the Department of Veterans Affairs [VA], to reach valid epidemiological conclusions about service-connected health effects? VA Secretary Anthony Principi recently concluded, much of the controversy over the health problems of veterans who fought in the 1991 war could have been avoided had more extensive surveillance data been collected. We agree. There should be no mysterious Iraq war syndrome after this victory. Veterans of this era should not go empty-handed into battle to prove deployment exposures caused or contributed to their postwar illnesses. In modern warfare, smart weapons dominate the battlefield and minimize collateral casualties. By far the smartest, most complex, most elegant system we send into battle is the human body. Accurate timely information is the life-cycle maintenance log of our most precious military asset, freedom's sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers. We look to those entrusted with their care to protect them. We welcome our witnesses this afternoon, and we look forward to their testimony. [The prepared statement of Hon. Christopher Shays follows:] TOM DAVIS, VIRGIN CHAIRMAN DAN BURTON, INDIANA CHRISTOPHER SAYS. CONNECTICUT ALBANA ROS- ENTINEN. FLORIDA JONI M. MCHUGH, NEW YORK JOHN MICA, FLORIDA MARK E. SOLUDER, NOANA STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, OHIO DOUS OSE, CALIFORNIA RON LEWS KENTUCKY JOAN DAVIS, VIRGINIA TOOD RUSSELL PLATTS, PENNSYLVANIA CAB CANNOR, UTAH ADAN H. PUTHAM, FLOROA BOWARD L SCYTHOOK, VAGINA JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR, TEMPEROSK JOHN BULLMAN OKLAHOMA NATHAN OBAL, BEORGIA MICHAEL A. TURNER, ONO JOHN A. CARTER, TEXAS WILLIAM J. JANGLOW, SOUTH DAKOTA When the war in Iraq is over, we will mourn our dead and a grateful nation will welcome home legions of battle-tested men and women who fought for freedom in a far off place. Some will be well. Some will be wounded. We may not always be able to tell the difference. Not all the casualties of modern warfare are apparent. Injuries and illnesses linked to exposures to chemicals, pathogens and toxins may not manifest symptoms until months or years after the victory parades. But those wounds are as much our responsibility to prevent, or treat, as those caused by bullets and bombs on the battlefield. Today we ask if the health of deployed forces is being effectively monitored and adequately protected against the insidious, but often avoidable, perils of their very hazardous workplace. Gulf War operations in 1991 could have taught us much about the dose/response relationship between wartime exposures and delayed health effects, but essential health data was never recorded. The Department of Defense (DOD) took years to acknowledge obvious deficiencies in Gulf War-era health protections for deployed forces. Since 1997, the Pentagon has issued impressive volumes of directives and Joint Staff policies on improved medical record keeping, battlefield environmental monitoring, troop location data and health surveillance before, during and after deployments. External panels of experts have echoed recommendations to standardize and integrate service-specific protocols and systems. The 1998 Defense Authorization Act directed the Department to implement many of the recommended improvements to medical tracking and disease prevention. Witnesses today will describe substantial progress in applying the lessons learned during Operation Desert Storm about force health protection. But questions remain whether the ambitious plans and proposals of peacetime will be able to pierce the fog of war and yield the detailed, realtime information needed to assess health effects after the battle. Do the preand post-deployment questionnaires now being administered meet the statutory mandate for "medical examinations?" Will the brief, hastily administered surveys capture the data required by DOD and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to reach valid epidemiological conclusions about service-connected health effects? VA Secretary Anthony Principi recently concluded, "Much of the controversy over the health problems of veterans who fought in the 1991 war could have been avoided had more extensive surveillance data been collected." We agree. There should be no mysterious "Iraq War Syndrome" after this victory. Veterans of this era should not go empty handed into the battle to prove deployment exposures caused or contributed to their post-war illnesses. In modern warfare, "smart" weapons dominate the battlefield and minimize collateral casualties. By far the smartest, most complex, most elegant system we send into battle is the human body. Accurate, timely health information is the life-cycle maintenance log of our most precious military asset-freedom's sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers. We look to those entrusted with their care to protect them. We welcome our witnesses this afternoon and look forward to their testimony. Mr. SHAYS. At this time I'd like to call on our vice chairman of the committee. Mr. TURNER. I don't have an opening statement. I look forward to hearing their testimony. This certainly is an important issue for us. Mr. SHAYS. I thank the gentleman. Mr. Kucinich, I know you just walked in. Do you have a statement you'd like to make, or shall we just swear them in? Mr. KUCINICH. I'd like to make a statement. Mr. SHAYS. You've got it. Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman. Welcome to the witnesses. The first Gulf war was 13 years ago, but as a country, we've not yet implemented the lessons that we've learned since that time. I believe that this failure may bring harm to our troops now in Iraq, and that is unacceptable. Part of this delay, unfortunately, was caused by a series of misstatements perpetuated by the Defense Department itself. Mr. Chairman, as you know, it took one group of dedicated veterans over 4 years to force the Pentagon to reveal that Iraqi stocks of sarin gas at Khamisiyah had been blown up by U.S. troops, exposing over 140,000 American soldiers. Steve Robinson, who will testify before us later, said in a recent interview, "that was the first lie. Then the Pentagon said, maybe 100 soldiers had been exposed. Then it was maybe 1,000. Lie after lie. Now it's up to 140,000." Similar concerns were raised about depleted uranium. Again, dedicated veterans spent years filing Freedom of Information requests to obtain information about friendly fire incidents involving depleted uranium. Although the Pentagon first said only 35 soldiers were exposed, this number soon increased to 122, then to 932, and then to thousands who breathed in depleted uranium. Unfortunately, it appears that Dr. Winkenwerder, who will also testify here today, has become part of the cycle. In January he issued a press release, which I would like to make part of the record. In the press release he made this statement, "the U.S. military is prepared to protect its personnel against the use of biological weapons." In fact, many Pentagon and White House officials have declared that troops are prepared for war in Iraq. While they understand the desire to provide assurance that a problem is being addressed, broadly claiming total preparedness in the face of evidence to the contrary is reckless. Last year the Army's own audit agency identified what it called, "a breakdown in the Army's primary control for ensuring the maintenance and sustained operability of chemical and biological equipment." They found that 62 percent of gas masks and 90 percent of chem-bio detectors didn't work. They said soldiers at 18 of 25 units they reviewed weren't proficient and couldn't operate basic equipment. GAO has also testified before this committee about shortages of critical items. One military wing, for example, had only 25 percent of the protective masks required. In addition, the GAO discovered the General Accounting Office discovered, amazingly, that some military units were selling their protective suits on the Inter net for $3, while other units were desperately clamoring for these critical items. In fact, the Pentagon's own inspector general raised these concerns, stating that, "420,000 suits were not on hand as recorded in the inventory balance.” For these reasons, Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, a former member of this subcommittee, wrote to Defense Secretary Rumsfeld to ask him do the troops going to Iraq have the minimum required levels of chem-bio protective equipment. She asked him to certify this to Congress. On February 27, just 3 weeks before the war in Iraq began, she got her answer, and that answer was no. The Defense Department refused to certify to Congress that it had provided to troops in Iraq the minimum levels of chem-bio equipment as those levels were established by the Pentagon itself. And I would like to ask that this letter also be included into the record. [The information referred to follows:] |