“The issue of preparation is not being done the way they are saying it is; they are not prepared," said Riley

WASHINGTON, March 3 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – As the U.S. Defence Department claims that it is bracing for the possible “resurgence of Gulf War Syndrome,” to head off a “biological Iraqi attack” in the event of war, some beg to differ with that.

Founder of the American Gulf War Veterans Association Joyce Riley lashed out at the U.S. administration, accusing it of doing “nothing” to provide some 200,000 soldiers poised in the Gulf with necessary equipment in fear of an alleged biological attack by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein should war break out, Agence-France Presse reported Monday, March 3.

The Pentagon has been reiterating more and more that it is compiling quantities of medical information on recruits and upgrading the U.S. forces with the state-of-the-art equipment to detect a chemical or biological attack.

"They are the best available in the world," Pentagon sources said, referring to the equipment to be used by the U.S. in the event of war.  

However, Riley asserts that the issue of preparation “is not being done the way they are saying it is; they are not prepared."

In her capacity as a former nurse during the 1991 Gulf war, Riley contends that the U.S. administration does not really knows what has made the U.S. soldiers sick during the Second Gulf War.

"We do not have adequate protection for our troops. We know the troops got something in Iraq, yet we have not defined what made them sick, but we continue to send them back, not knowing what it is," said Riley, who was a nurse during the 1991 war.

And she also expresses concerns over the presence of some 250,000 defective protective suits currently still “idle” in the army's inventory, noting that they would not be fit for a possible war any longer.

Russian Roulette

She said if the U.S. soldiers used such suits, it would be like playing the “Russian roulette, when someone risks killing himself/herself by shooting at their head with a gun that has a bullet in one of its six chambers. 

“Since the Pentagon has not located the suits to put them out of service, their use would be suicidal. It's like playing Russian roulette," she said.

Other experts, Gulf War veterans such as Dr. Francis O'Donnell who offers advice to the Pentagon, say the army is now better equipped to carry out “environmental surveillance.”

Most associations that speak up for ex-combatants are dubious; however, there is much protection for troops faced with Iraq's arsenal of chemical weapons, as outlined early February by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell.

The Gulf War Syndrome, the term used for a collection of illnesses affecting veterans of the 1991 Gulf War, affected tens of thousands of troops.

Of the more than 700,000 troops that participated in operation Desert Storm, some 200,000 soldiers complained of pain, sickness, skin problems, loss of memory and concentration, symptoms which come under the syndrome's general category.

Pentagon experts have said the symptoms could be due to the stress of a chemical or biological attack experienced by the soldiers during their deployment in the Gulf, a theory which does not sit well with veteran organizations.

Today, around 145,000 people have been granted some type of compensation, according to Riley. Some 60,000 other requests for compensation were rejected, she said, citing Defence Department figures.

The average payment received, according to Riley, is 98 dollars per month, a figure which amounts to “really nothing”.

The sum, she added, can barely “wash the DoD's (Defence of Department) hands.”

On Sunday, March 2, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld asked Bush to authorize the use of the toxic riot-control agents CS gas and pepper spray against the Iraqi people in a looming and seemingly inevitable military aggression against their country.