Some security experts say Bush Administration continues unneeded program to bolster long-disproven claims.Army Stockpiling, Destroying Unneeded WMD Antidotes In IraqBy Cliff Montgomery – June 11th, 2007Despite the Bush Administration’s war-making claims of still-potent Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) in Iraq being firmly disproved by news reports and numerous government studies in the past four years, the U.S. Army still ships to the country–and later destroys–millions of tax dollars worth of antidotes for nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, according to Army documents unearthed by Government Executive magazine.The activity is a leftover from when the Bush Administration actively claimed that former Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein still possessed potent weapons of mass destruction, including chemical and biological agents.No active WMDs have been discovered in Iraq since the start of the war in March 2003; and both detailed news accounts such as one written by this journalist for Alternet.org and government reports from such bodies as the Senate Select Committee for Intelligence have revealed that Bush’s “evidence” for the Iraq invasion was “either overstated” or was “not supported by the underlying intelligence reporting.”The antidote kits–which provide treatments and injectors for nerve gas, antibiotics to combat anthrax exposure, and drugs to lessen the effects of exposure to radiation–are no longer even given to U.S. troops when they arrive in Iraq.The Army kits, called Individual Service Member Medical Chemical Defense Materiel, are kept in locked military vans “without being issued to the individual soldier. In addition, millions of dollars worth of [the kits] are incinerated annually in Iraq,” according to the Army Medical Department documents obtained by Government Executive.”Current theater policy is to incinerate all [kits] prior to redeployment,” the papers add. The documents do not mention how much this waste is costing the American taxpayer.The briefing documents were produced by the Task Force 3 Medical Command, the top medical command operating in Iraq, and given to senior commanders.Army spokesman Dave Foster told Government Executive that the Army’s policy is “to issue the [kits] to each unit prior to deployment, and ensure all unused [kits are] turned in prior to the unit’s redeployment for destruction.”Foster refused to answer other questions, under the argument that the briefing documents were stamped “For Official Use Only.”The U.S. Central Command, which decides primary policy issues for the Iraq theater, refused to field questions on why the Army first deploys and then destroys the unneeded kits.According to an Army Medical Materiel Agency supply bulletin, much of the kits’ materiel–such as the atropine injectors and the antibiotics–are to be stored at a controlled temperature of between 59 and 86 degrees Fahrenheit.Foster admitted to Government Executive however that the kit components “expire after 12 to 15 months in an uncontrolled temperature environment,” such as Iraq, where temperatures routinely dip below 59 degrees in winter and top 100 in summer.Philip Coyle, senior adviser with the Center for Defense Information, a Washington, D.C.-based security policy research organization, says the unnecessary storage and incineration of the Army kits are a waste of taxpayer money.Coyle, who served as both assistant secretary of Defense and director of the Pentagon’s operational test and evaluation office for the Clinton Administration from 1994 to 2001, believes the Army’s storage of the kits in Iraq is a simple political maneuver. The unnecessary storage of such kits allow top Army commanders to at least subtly maintain the long-discredited Bush Administration falsehoods that Saddam Hussein still somehow possessed WMD and “insinuations since by Vice President [Dick] Cheney and others that WMD might still be found.””Accordingly, it wouldn’t be surprising if no one in the Army has wanted to raise the policy issue of why are we still sending these kits to Iraq,” Coyle told Government Executive.Ivan Oelrich, vice president for strategic security programs at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington, D.C., stated that if the U.S. Army does continue shipping the kits to Iraq, “it has to be more than symbolic…[They have] to be stored and managed correctly.”But since there’s no WMD threat, storing the kits isn’t the issue, Coyle retorted.The Army and people like Mr. Oelrich can’t argue that there is a sure “logistical advantage in lead time” to keeping the kits in Iraq because of some imagined WMD exposure when “the kits are not being distributed to the troops,” Coyle said. “I can’t imagine the Army would operate this way if they really believed there was a credible threat,” he added.We couldn’t agree more.Like what you’re reading so far? 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How Necessary Laws Are Killed These Days
Lawmakers generally only fight to protect the things they care about – and all too often, that just doesn’t include the lives of most of their constituents.
