Pentagon: 35,000 troops potentially exposed to nerve gas

WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon will soon notify some 35,000 Gulf War veterans that they were among an estimated 100,000 U.S. troops who may have been exposed to trace amounts of nerve gas after U.S. soldiers blew up an Iraqi ammunition dump in March 1991, sources told CNN Monday.

Based on updated computer modeling, the Pentagon now believes the chemical cloud that resulted from the demolition at Kamisiyah in southeastern Iraq, moved in a slightly different direction, and that might have exposed 35,000 troops who were not notified after the original estimate was done in 1997.

At the same time some 33,000 troops who were sent letters back in 1997 notifying them of possible exposure to low levels of nerve gas are now thought not to have been exposed after all.

Based on the new analysis the Pentagon now estimates a total of 101,000 U.S. troops may have been exposed to very low levels of nerve agents, up from the 1997 estimate of 99,000 troops.

Also Tuesday, sources say, the Pentagon will release a new RAND review of medical studies on the effect of low level exposure to nerve agents, and the possible health effects.

Sources say the review, like previous studies, finds no evidence of adverse health consequences that brief exposure to nerve gas at doses so low that no symptoms were produced at the time.

In March of 1991, after the end of the Persian Gulf War, U.S. troops destroyed Iraqi weapons stockpiles at Kamisiyah, including some 500 rockets filled with deadly sarin nerve gas.

After the Pentagon discovered evidence that U.S. troops destroyed chemical weapons in the mid-1990s, the possible exposure became a prime suspect for the health problems suffered by some Gulf war veterans.

The latest review from the Institute of Medicine, issued last September, found "inadequate" and "insufficient" evidence to make such a link.

The Institute of Medicine report concluded while it is "reasonable to hypothesize that long-term adverse health effects can occur after exposure to low levels of sarin… there are no well-controlled studies on long term health effects."

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