Mr. Bacon: This is, I know, a shocking precedent to arrive on time, let alone maybe a minute or two early. You all know Dr. Bernard Rostker, the Special Assistant for Gulf War Illnesses.

He set out less than a year ago to unravel many of the questions that have been plaguing investigators for years, and an important part of that is a series of case narratives where he examines questions that have been raised about various events during the Gulf War. Today, he is going to release the seventh and eighth of those case narratives, and he plans to have 13 done by the end of this first year, which is in November.

So we continue to get this information out when we can. All of these are made publicly available. We invite comments from veterans groups, from military analysts who have special insights about what went on during the war, and, of course, we invite your reportage and commentary on the case studies.

Q: A quick question?

A: Yes.

Q: The Gulf Presidential Panel, the report on that draft report; do you have any comment on that at all?

A: Yes. I do have some comment on that, and maybe Bernie will comment further. Frankly, we've been working hand and glove with the Presidential Advisory Committee to try to answer as many of the questions as we can about what went on in the Gulf, what caused some of the symptoms that people are suffering, and to determine the best way to treat and care for veterans who fought during the Gulf War.

Our process has been completely open to them, completely transparent. We have followed their guidance. We have allowed their staffers to come in and sit in on all our meetings and at all the information we've developed. They have been on the ground floor of all our studies over the last year, and in light of that, we were frankly somewhat disappointed by their comments that we have been less than open and less than credible in our approach to this.

What we can't promise is to be able to answer every question. We have not promised that; and, in fact, we have not been able to answer every question, nor have they. This is a very, very difficult topic. It's emotional, it's scientific, it's historical, and it has many, many strands to it. We've been trying to unravel those stands, as have they.

I hope that we will continue to be able to work with them in the remaining month or so of their time in business -- weeks of their time in business, as we have in the past, but I think that we want to be in common cause with them to try to get to the bottom of these issues. We don't regard them as a problem in any way, and we are somewhat disappointed that they seem to see us as a problem, because we have made enormous efforts, and I think Dr. Rostker is the primary symbol of those efforts.

We have made enormous efforts to try to be open with the PAC, with the press, with the public, with Congress, and with veterans and to follow every lead we can to get to the bottom of some of these issues.

These reports today are part of that effort. You've been here. You've watched Bernie Rostker brief on these reports. You've had a chance to question him. He has been available to answer your questions. I've tried to be available to answer questions on Gulf War Illness, and we'll continue to be as open as we can on this. Charlie?

Q: How do you answer the charge that despite the fact that you appear to be doing better now, that you lost so much credibility early on in investigating this, that any conclusion you come to won't be believed by the public; and, therefore, somebody else should be put in charge of this investigation?

A: First of all, I agree that we had a huge burden to overcome, that we were slow to appreciate the problem, and we were slow to investigate it as aggressively as we should have. I agree with that. Secretary Cohen agrees with that. Bernie Rostker agrees with that.

We responded aggressively when the president, in the spring of 1995, launched a new effort to find out what happened to people who fought in the Gulf. It was a result of that effort that produced the Khamisiyah disclosure in June of 1996, where we revealed for the first time that there was reason to believe that U.S. soldiers could have been exposed to Iraqi chemicals after the war. Since then, we have worked very aggressively to try to figure out what happened to Khamisiyah -- you were here for the case narrative on that, the plume study -- and to look at many, many other incidents as well.

These are incidents that people have charged us with overlooking in the past. We have taken those charges seriously, and we've gone back and tried to follow every single lead in every one of these incidents, and Bernie will explain that to you.

We did have a burden to overcome. What I ask is that the public and the press, the veterans look at what we've done since June of 1996 and ask yourself have we proceeded more aggressively, more openly, and more forthrightly since June of '96 than before, and I think the answer is undeniably yes. Has that led to answers to every question? Unfortunately, no. Am I certain that we will be able to answer every question about Gulf War Illness? No, I am not certain.

I'm quite certain that mysteries will remain long after the PAC has completed its work and long after Dr. Rostker has completed his work. But I do think that as a result of what we've done over the last 12 to 18 months, that we have a much greater appreciation of some of the risks that people can face from chemical and other substances during combat. I think we have a much better sense of what we need to do to respond to health problems when they arise. I think we have a much better sense of how we track medical care that is given to soldiers in a theater of operations before, during, and after a conflict.

I think all of this will inform the way we deal with health problems and improve the way we deal with health problems. I think we've already seen some of that in Bosnia. It's not flawless. We've made mistakes there, too; but I think we've done a better job there than we did in the Gulf; and I think the next time, God forbid, our forces go into combat, we will do a much better job than we did in the Gulf.

Q: Can we assume that the Pentagon would fight any move to put somebody else in overall charge?

A: Absolutely not. Well, we will not fight oversight. I think we've benefited from oversight. I think it's clear to the White House we've benefited from oversight. We have responded well to oversight. The public deserves to have oversight. We have it from Congress anyway. We have it from you. We have had it from the PAC. I think we've responded aggressively to that oversight and tried to do the best job possible.

I do not think it makes sense to take away this investigation from Bernie, from our health affairs people, and from the Pentagon and give it to somebody who has not been involved in this for the last several years. I think it would hurt the cause of veterans, and I think it would hurt the cause of clarity in trying to get to the bottom of this problem.

Q: Not to drag this on too much, you would, in fact, oppose any move to put somebody else in overall charge of the investigation, which the Pentagon is now.

A: We do not oppose oversight. What we do oppose is taking the investigation away from the Pentagon and giving it to a medical school or another government organization, because we think, particularly after the progress we've made over the last year, that we are in a better position to serve the cause of soldiers, of veterans, and of medical care in the future by staying on top of this and by working aggressively to learn what we can and translate it into new standards of chemical protection, new standards of medical care, and new standards of force protection for the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines who are serving and will serve in combat situations.

So oversight, yes; overturning what we are doing, taking it away from us, no. Bernie?

Dr. Rostker: I would just add one thing to what Ken said, and that is we have substantial oversight from the committees of Congress and a lot of interaction. I just came back from a trip to the Czech Republic, France, and Britain, and we had members of the Senate investigative staff on our team. Next month we'll be going to Egypt, Israel, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia, and we'll have an expanded group of congressional staffers with us, so they get to see it and hear it first-hand.

It really is very apropos that we are here to talk about two case narratives today, in light of the article in the Washington Post and your questions, because what that article really talks to is the fundamental nature of the case narrative process. We are talking about two case narratives today. They are in response to detections that were made. The case narratives run to some 40 pages and 80 to 90 footnotes. All of the material is on Gulf Link, is on the Internet for your review, not just the footnotes, but its hyperlink back to the source documents.

The case narratives are divided, as you know, into two parts. One is a presentation of the facts, and the other is our assessment. Jim Schlesinger, when he was Secretary of Defense, liked to say that everybody was entitled to his opinion, but not everybody was entitled to their own set of facts. There really are one set of facts, and we start these case narratives with an 800 telephone number requesting anybody who has any additional information to please bring them forward.

So, ultimately the character of our work, which is key to the credibility of our effort, has to be judged by the quality of our case narratives. The two case narratives that we have before you today are the second and third of which will be a five-part series on Marine operations in the Gulf.

The first one, you will remember, was a Marine breaching operation which occurred in the first hours of the campaign. As the Marines moved north, their next objective was Al Jaber Air Base, and there was a report by a Fox vehicle commanded by Gunnery Sergeant Grass. We've looked into that and found that there were several additional alerts. We've examined that in terms of corroborating information of commands that took out 256 kits, reports of any casualties, and we cannot substantiate the initial report.

We made an assessment, given these facts, of "unlikely," and the reason it was "unlikely" and not "definitely not" was that there is one piece of information missing, and that is the tapes, the paper tapes from the Fox vehicle. They were sent into the chain of command and were discarded almost immediately because the account was not considered credible, and it was considered a false alarm by the people on the ground.

I'm joined today, and if you have any additional questions on the narrative, by Jim Curren, who is the analyst who performed -- who is the expert on the Al Jaber case, and we can return for any specific questions that you might have.

I'd like to point out one thing that also gets to the nature of the case, and, frankly, the nature of the concerns that the PAC had. There is a concern that we are biased, in that we refuse to recognize any chemicals that were in Kuwait, that there was a possibility. The DIA has made an assessment that chemicals were not in Kuwait, and we are prepared to overrule that assessment if we find any evidence to the contrary; but I'd also point out that UNSCOM had made exactly the same assessment. And this occurred on July 29th in Buffalo, in testimony before the President's Advisory Committee, and it is contained in the PAC's home page on the Internet.

If you go to the Internet, you will see that there's two entries, one for testimony on the 29th, one for testimony on the 30th. This comes from the testimony on the 29th. The UNSCOM representative pointed out that from 1996 to 1997 UNSCOM had undertaken to investigate further the history of production, filling, and deployments of the 155-millimeter mustard shells and also the 122-millimeter sarin rockets.

In other words, they wanted to take it from the production records and trace and count all of the rounds as they moved through the theater. And UNSCOM reported to the PAC that they now believe, based on their inquiry, that 155-millimeter mustard rounds and 122-millimeter sarin rounds were moved during January of 1991 between three Iraqi depots: Ukhaydir, An Nasiriyah, Khamisiyah, and Maymunah.

In questioning, one of the PAC members asked the following question, and I'm quoting, "Do you see any evidence where any weapons were moved from the three lower depots actually down into Kuwait maybe brought back at some time?" The UNSCOM representative said, "We have seen no evidence of that, and Iraq has said that no movement took place other what is described here," and "here" meaning an accounting of all of the movements of mustard and sarin rounds between the various depots.

The PAC member further says "If I follow the timeline, it may appear that they didn't have the time to move it further down. It seems that it was enough for them to just to get them down that far." And then the UNSCOM witness goes on to say, "They have specifically indicated that they did not dispense them any further to units operating in the more advanced positions," meaning further south.

As I indicated, I just came back from Paris and London, where we queried our allies on exactly those points. In Paris we spoke to people who were on the UNSCOM team, chemical officers. They confirmed that chemical weapons were not shipped further south than Khamisiyah. Again, if we found any evidence that would question that, we'd certainly bring it forward, but the clarity of the DIA analysis and the confirmation of the UNSCOM findings confirmed both in Paris and London, I think, are pieces of information that pertain to whether chemical weapons were at Al Jaber Air Base.

The second case narrative has to do with the Fox detection at what was known as "the orchard." This was an ammunition supply place, and it is reported in the CENTCOM logs on the 28th of February as coming across a cache of weapons and then holding for the night and that they were going to send in the next day the ordnance disposal people. This incident was also reported by GySgt. Grass and was testified to before the Shays Committee in December.

We have spoken not only with GySgt. Grass, but with every member of the Ordnance Disposal Unit, and they all deny that they found anything. The chem logs on the first of March, the day they went in, -- the CENTCOM chem logs -- confirm that nothing was found. There were numerous messages to that effect. I should say the ordnance disposal officers personnel who went in not only have talked to us, but one of them wrote to Congressman Shays pointing out that they found nothing.

It also turns out that the officer in charge returned to Kuwait as a civilian contractor and had as an assignment the clearing of this very depot; and, again, during the clearing operation, nothing was found. There is a declassified DIA paper on the post-war clearing operations, which is linked in the case narrative.

We spoke at length with this to the British. They pointed out that the contracting for the ordnance disposal, the contracting firms had gone in and surveyed and then bid without -- the ordnance would be disposed of and sorted and then disposed of. They weren't in MOPP, wouldn't be in chemical protections, because they hadn't found any chemicals; but if they had, then they would certainly have brought that forward to renegotiate the contracts because it would have meant a lot more money to them if they had to do their job in chemical protective gear.

So, again, we have a whole array of information that points to the fact that there were no chemicals at this site. The only missing piece of information, again, is the Fox vehicle tape, and that's why we reserved the assessment -- we restricted the assessment to an "unlikely" instead of a "definitely not."

And, again, we have Margaret Graf, who is the analyst who did all of this fact finding. She is right here, and she can talk to you about this particular case.

Two weeks from now, we will bring forward another case and three information papers. In fair order through November we will be bringing a number of them forward for your review. I'm prepared to take any questions you might have.

Q: Could you just comment again on this credibility question, because in a way, it's a question about your credibility. The idea advanced by some on the Advisory Committee that it doesn't really matter whether you're doing a good and thorough job now, that the Pentagon's reputation is so tarnished that any result is not going to be credible if the Pentagon heads the investigation from this point on.

A: That's obviously in the eyes of the beholder. I can tell you that we have developed an outstanding relationship with many of the veterans organizations, with the Hill. I think I have a good relationship with the press. We've been open, we've been available, and we've been thorough. I think it's a very unfair rap to say you were bad in '94, and, therefore, we can never trust you again. That strikes me to be a kind of preconceived notion.

The important thing here, frankly, is the health of our veterans. This is informative; but seven years after the fact none of it is going to be definitive. I hate to see us have so much attention on whether, for example, our assessment of the Fisher case is whether it was "likely" or "definite," which we spent a lot of time on at the last PAC meeting, rather than the issue of what does it mean to the health of our veterans. That has to be the most important question.

Q: To follow up, often some of the debate about the Pentagon's credibility seems to be the Commission's other findings, which essentially stand by their previous conclusions. What can you tell veterans today about what it is you know? Do you have any answer at all for what's causing these ailments that are plaguing these veterans?

A: We have intensely carried out our unique responsibility to inform the debate in terms of what happened in the Gulf. In addition, we've been aggressive in our medical research program, particularly in funding medical research that deals with the possibilities of effects of low-level chemical exposure.

Unfortunately, medical research takes time. But I think we have put in place a much better understanding of what happened in the Gulf, for example, through the Khamisiyah plume analysis. That has to be married with the medical research program.

So the pieces of the puzzle are there. The pieces of the analysis are there. Unfortunately, it takes time to bring this to completion.

Q: The Commission apparently is not going to change its conclusion that exposure to a low level of chemicals remains an unlikely cause for Gulf War ailments. Do you share that opinion?

A: We have commissioned some independent medical review work that is not ready, and I reserve my own judgment in that, as I have before you for a while. I find it interesting if low-level chem. is not a problem, then why are we spending so much time looking at incidents where one or two people might have been exposed to low-level chem?

We are not so sanguine to declare categorically, either in terms of who might have been exposed or in terms of medical findings, and I would point out that the PAC also said, subject to further research, we think the problem is important enough that it deserves that further research.

Q: The Committee did say, however, that the stress of war, the stress of battle, the stress of living under those conditions was a likely cause of many of the problems because it simply lowered people's resistance to other things that they could catch, things that would affect them. Not that the stress of war was a direct cause, but that it weakens people in some ways and makes them susceptible to physical ailments. Would you agree with that? Does that seem to be a problem?

A: I would agree that that is a hypothesis, but I'm not a physician, and I promised an open mind over a whole range of things. I'm not prepared to make a judgment at this time.

Q: During your trip out, did you get any information from the French that would shed further light on the French detections during the war?

A: We had an excellent set of meetings with the French, and we left with the French a copy of the case narrative, a very detailed case narrative, that deals with the French detection, which is tied to the Czech detections on a very limited -- a few days, and we are waiting for their review of that paper. But I can, I think, share with you some insights that we gained in both Prague and in Paris that were, I thought, very interesting.

The Czechs had last year initiated a further medical review of all of their personnel. Some 200 were in the Gulf; 154 came forward. They found no correlation to any of the symptoms that we generally associate. They were watching our literature very carefully. They did find six people where they were illness that they could not explain, and that's not all that different from the VA's population of unexplained illness.

Their report -- they gave us their report -- it's in Czech. We will have it translated, and they gave us permission to post it on the Internet. So, you'll have the report.

As far as their detections were concerned, we, as others, reviewed all of their equipment. It is very sensitive equipment. But I was interested -- and we pressed them very hard -- on the issue of were there any detections at the any other period during the war, and when did they turn off their detectors. There is a hypothesis out there that the battlefield was just flooded with chemicals, and if it was, then the Czech equipment should have found it. The Czech equipment was so sensitive that at the levels that it reported on these two occasions, they didn't even go into MOPP gear because it was so subclinical.

Anyway, the Czechs reported to us that the equipment was on 24 hours a day up until the 28th of February, and there was never any other alarm. I think that it was a significant piece of information.

We had excellent meetings with the French, both in the medical area and in the operations area. They confirmed that very day that there were no French veterans who were receiving compensation, a pension, for health reasons, although given that they have a national health system, people would not necessarily have to come to the Ministry of Defense to receive medical care.

They are, I believe, as perplexed as we are as to why their veterans do not seem to be ill or at least reporting illness. They pointed us to a doctoral dissertation that had been written on the subject of the health of the Gulf War veterans and promised us a copy. Again, we will translate that when we get it and post that on the Internet.

There has been a suggestion that one reason the French soldiers might not be sick is that they did not take pyridostigmine bromide. That is not the case. There was no order to take pyridostigmine bromide, but when they went to collect it, a lot was missing, and they attributed that to units that were in proximity to American units where American units were taking it; and, in fact, in the operations briefing, a senior colonel in the Chemical Corps said, "Pyridostigmine bromide? No problem. I took it every day for a month." So that hypothesis, that it could be related grossly to the presence or absence of pyridostigmine bromide, that would not hold up to the facts that at least elements of the French force did take PB.

They indicated that they had extensive testing with monkeys, and they saw no problem with PB. We gave them, in all of the places, an extensive briefing on Khamisiyah, including the plume analysis. They were extremely appreciative and, frankly, complimentary of the detail and the care and the really breaking of new science in terms of putting the various models together.

So it was a good, two-way exchange, and we had something to give them that they were interested in, which was the Khamisiyah experience.

Q: Do you share Mr. Bacon's view that handing the overall responsibility over of this investigation to an outside entity, an independent entity that has not been intimately involved with it for the last four years, would be a step backwards, would do a disservice to the cause?

A: Absolutely, and I would say it even in stronger terms. This Department has an absolute responsibility, not only to our veterans, but to our future soldiers and sailors and marines and airmen, to understand in detail what happened in the Gulf. We need to understand that so that we can change our policies, our procedures, our equipment, our doctrine accordingly. That's in little ways and in big ways.

We are not happy with the record keeping. We are not happy with the imprecision in identifying where people were and, therefore, would have been subject to an environmental hazard. As we speak today, General Vesser is engaged with S-3's and G-3's from 7th Corps to go back and pinpoint where elements of that corps were during the early parts of March so that we can better understand that in terms of the Khamisiyah plume analysis.

In the future, I think technology and an appreciation of the problem will allow us to address that. Those kinds of insights come from doing the analysis. Not only is the expertise here, but the responsibility is here. We are responsible for what happened in the Gulf, whether it was good or bad, and we have to learn from that. Frankly, I don't think that a disagreement about whether the David Fisher case should have been rated as "likely" or "definite" is a basis for a charge of bias or a basis to change the current relationship.

Q: Wouldn't having an outside organization take over the prime responsibility preclude you from still getting the answers you need, and wouldn't -- a view that might be more believable to people?

A: I've been at this for a year, and I, frankly, do not buy the story of the PAC about credibility. I've met with too many veterans groups [in] too many town hall meetings, national conventions to agree that there is a credibility problem.

Mr. Bacon: Thank you.

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