This was confirmed in a U.N. visit in May 1996 and announced by the Department in June 1996. Efforts to determine potential exposure have been ongoing. IDA also reported continued concern about the inability to describe the many variables of the agent-munition release mechanism. The IDA agreed with the CIA that huge uncertainties remained in attempting to estimate key variables such as the number of rockets present for destruction and the number of those destroyed, total quantity of agent released, mechanism of release, and purity of agent. At this time, DoD is working with the CIA to conduct a series of small scale tests at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah to provide insights into numbers of rockets destroyed, mechanism and quantities of agent released, and initial agent behavior.
Many questions remain to be answered.
The Department of Defense believes that our search for answers to the question of who may have been exposed to chemical agents requires action now. Therefore, having discussed these concerns with the Presidential Advisory Committee at their last meeting, I am going forward with an analysis of participation rates for personnel registered the CCEP and VA medical registry programs and that were examined prior to July 1996 with regard to time and unit locations relative to Khamisiyah events. We believe that our measure of outcome, while not having scientific rigor, will help further our investigation. In time, when modeling yields its best estimate of where chemical agents may have affected troops, we can observe whether the rates of participation are in some way associated with the dispersal of chemical agent. Research will help us understand the long-term effects of exposures to a number of factors present in the Gulf War.