[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 42 (Thursday, April 10, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2968-S2969]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            CHEMICAL WEAPONS

  Mr. TORRICELLI. Mr. President, this morning, millions of Americans 
awoke to some startling revelations, news that was particularly painful 
to thousands of veterans of the Persian Gulf war. Yesterday the Central 
Intelligence Agency released a report that stated that as early as 1984 
it had intelligence reports warning that chemical weapons held by the 
military of Iraq were stored at a previously undisclosed chemical 
weapons site.
  Indeed, in 1986, the CIA had received even more specific reports and 
obtained a copy of an Iraqi chemical weapons production plan that 
mentioned large storage facilities and the exact location and even the 
types of chemicals and other weapons that were being stored at that 
location.
  Despite each of these reports and the existence of this detailed 
information in the very files of the Central Intelligence Agency, the 
Pentagon was not informed at any level on any basis of any of this 
information when the ground war commenced in the Persian Gulf in 
January 1991.
  Without this information, tragically, American ground forces entered 
the specific chemical weapons storage facility named within Central 
Intelligence Agency files in March 1991.

[[Page S2969]]

 Fully 20,000 American soldiers were in the vicinity and potentially 
were exposed to the residue of those chemicals when this facility was 
destroyed.
  Two days later, after the destruction of the facility, potentially 
after 20,000 American soldiers were exposed to these chemical weapons, 
the Central Intelligence Agency informed the Pentagon of this 
information and a possible exposure.
  Mr. President, yesterday Dr. Robert Walpole, a CIA agency official 
investigating this incident on behalf of the Central Intelligence 
Agency, issued an apology to the Nation's veterans. It is not good 
enough. This Nation for several years has been agonizing about the 
cause of unknown illnesses among our soldiers. During all of that 
study, during all the long nights of wonder and doubt and pain, this 
information was not supplied to the President, the Congress, the 
commission studying this information or, most importantly, those 
veterans whose lives may have been permanently changed and damaged. And 
now we are given an apology.
  Mr. President, this is more than a failure in a single instant. It is 
another example of the fact that the American people and this 
Government are not being adequately served by the American intelligence 
community.
  Dr. Walpole stated the reasons, in his judgment, for this failure. He 
said, first, that there was tunnel vision in the American intelligence 
community; second, that there had been an incomplete search of the 
files; and, third and perhaps most chilling to all of us who share 
these concerns about the role of the American intelligence community in 
working with our military and civilian personnel, he said there was a 
reluctance by some CIA officials to share some of its most sensitive 
information with Government officials.
  It appeared that some CIA officials knowingly and consciously weighed 
the sources of their information with the potential of sharing that 
information with the U.S. military and made the wrong judgment, making 
victims, potentially, out of our own soldiers.
  Mr. President, this is not an isolated failure of intelligence 
policy. It is indicative of a continuing plague of bad judgment, and it 
is an indication of a need for large-scale institutional reform of how 
the intelligence community conducts its business, makes its judgments, 
and shares its information with elected officials and the U.S. 
military.
  We are experiencing again not only a failure of leadership, but an 
inability to share at the proper time in the proper manner with the 
leadership of this Government sensitive intelligence information.
  The intelligence community was created in this country to ensure that 
elected officials had the best information to make the right security 
judgments for this country, so that the U.S. military would have the 
best possible information to both prevail in conflicts and minimize 
casualties. Neither can be accomplished if officials of the 
intelligence community do not feel a responsibility, indeed, are not 
driven by the need to share the best information with the leadership of 
the U.S. Government.
  An apology has been issued to the Armed Forces of the United States 
and those who may have suffered as a result of this incident. It is not 
only inadequate, it is a disservice to every man and woman who wears 
the uniform of this country. The President of the United States and 
this Congress must respond to this latest incident by beginning 
institutional reform in the organization, the leadership and, indeed, 
the mission of the Central Intelligence Agency.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor and thank you for your indulgence.

                          ____________________