[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 128 (Wednesday, September 23, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10833-S10834]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   PREPARING FOR FUTURE BATTLEFIELDS

  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, in June 1997, Senator Glenn, Senator Levin, 
and I requested the General Accounting Office (GAO) to examine the 
Department of Defense's (DOD) approach for addressing U.S. troop 
exposures to low levels of chemical warfare agents. That report is 
being released today. This kind of exposure, most recently experienced 
in the immediate aftermath of the Persian Gulf War--and possibly during 
it--is likely to become an ever greater threat, as more nations seek a 
battlefield advantage by employing the ``poor man's bomb,'' chemical 
weapons. Our concern was to ensure that the Department of Defense had, 
in fact, learned the lessons of the Persian Gulf War and had taken 
effective steps to address any weaknesses that might result in the 
soldiers of future wars being needlessly harmed by exposure to low 
levels of chemical weapons. It is one thing to suffer casualties on the 
battlefield due to the misfortunes of war; it is quite another thing to 
inflict on American service men and women unnecessary wounds caused by 
a lack of foresight and planning. That is unacceptable.
  Unfortunately, what the GAO discovered is that, as far as chemical 
weapons and chemical battlefields are concerned, the United States 
military is still in Cold War mode. DOD's focus in this area is still 
to enable U.S. forces to survive, fight, and win in the dreaded all-out 
nuclear, biological, and chemical battlefields of the Cold War. DOD has 
no strategy to address low-level exposures to chemical warfare agents. 
None. Nada. Zip. Despite the fact that existing DOD-conducted research 
indicates that low-level exposures to some chemical warfare agents may 
result in adverse short-term performance and long-term health effects, 
the Department of Defense has not stated a policy or developed doctrine 
on the protection of troops from low-level exposures to chemical 
warfare agents on the battlefield. Apparently, DOD prefers to 
concentrate on ``winning,'' and hand off any chemical casualties to the 
Department of Veterans Affairs with a ``no longer my business'' 
attitude. I think we need to look at the bigger picture and give the 
safety of our military personnel the consideration they certainly 
deserve.
  Even in the wake of disclosures by DOD that approximately 100,000 
U.S. troops might have been exposed to some harmful level of chemical 
nerve and blister agents resulting from the destruction of a single 
Iraqi munitions dump, less than two percent of DOD's chemical and 
biological defense research and development program funds have been 
allocated to low-level chemical exposure issues in the two years since 
those disclosures. DOD claims that there is ``no validated threat'' of 
low-level chemical exposure to warrant greater effort, even as it 
continues to analyze other incidents during the Gulf War that may 
result in more troops being notified that they may have been exposed to 
low doses of chemical warfare agents. Moreover, the GAO report notes 
that DOD did a study just last year analyzing the impact of state 
sponsored terrorist attacks using low levels of chemical warfare agent 
to clandestinely disrupt U.S. military operations.
  It seems both prudent and reasonable to at least begin the conceptual 
work to address the issue of low-level exposures to chemical warfare 
agents. But what GAO found instead was a few uncoordinated efforts by 
concerned offices to look into this current and future threat. This 
issue demands a top-down approach, in which the broad strategy or 
framework can guide the development of research, new technology, and 
operational practice to better defend American men and women, our sons 
and daughters, grandsons and granddaughters, when they don the uniform 
of the United

[[Page S10834]]

States and defend our interests in the hardest and most courageous 
manner.
  For this reason, and based upon the material which the GAO 
investigators had uncovered, I authored an amendment, which Senator 
Glenn cosponsored, to this year's Department of Defense Authorization 
bill to require the Secretary of Defense to review and modify chemical 
warfare defense policies and doctrine. The review calls upon DOD to 
address providing adequate protection from any low-level exposure, 
whether singly or in combination with other hazards, and whether to a 
single agent or to multiple agents and hazards over time. This 
amendment also requires the Secretary to address the reporting, 
coordinating, and retaining of information on possible exposures, 
including monitoring the health effects of those exposures by location, 
so that other mistakes of the Persian Gulf War are not extended to 
future battles. Additionally, this amendment calls upon the Secretary 
to develop and carry out a research program on the health effects of 
low-level exposures that can guide the Secretary in the evolution of 
policy and doctrine on low-level exposures to chemical warfare agents. 
I am very pleased that the amendment was retained in conference, and I 
look forward to the report on the review, which is due on May 1, 1999.
  I am also pleased with the fine and useful work done by GAO on this 
report, particularly by Dr. Sushil Sharma and Mr. Jeffery Harris. I 
hope that the Department of Defense finds their analysis and their 
conclusions helpful as it begins the review mandated in the Department 
of Defense Authorization conference report. And finally, I thank 
Senator Levin and Senator Glenn for their interest in this matter.

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