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CIA Briefing Before the Presidential Advisory Committee on 13 November 1996 Dr. Lashof, Members of the Committee, I am pleased to appear before you today to discuss CIA's efforts related to reports of possible exposure of US troops to chemical agents in the Persian Gulf. We strongly believe that the committee is making an important contribution to the public's understanding of this issue and we have given high priority to all of your requests for support. We know how important this issue is to the Gulf War Veterans, and that our intelligence may help. Therefore, our Director is committed to make public as much information as possible. I have provided you with a transcript of my 1 November Press statement. CIA also has kept you informed of its key analytic findings. Today, I would like to briefly restate those findings and discuss the status of the ongoing efforts to model the release of nerve agents from the Pit area at Khamisiyah, the expert review of our modeling, CIA's declassification effort, and our plans for the future. Key Findings ON the basis of a comprehensive review of intelligence, we continue to conclude that Iraq did not use chemical or biological weapons during the Gulf War. In addition, analysis and computer modeling indicate chemical agents released by aerial bombing of chemical warfare facilities at Muhammadiyat and Al Muthanna--both located in remote areas in northern Iraq--did not reach US troops in Saudi Arabia. However, we have identified potential fallout concerns in southern Iraq--specifically at the rear-area chemical weapons storage bunker and pit area at Khamisiyah. Khamisiyah In September 1995, CIA identified Khamisiyah as a site where CW agents may have been released. We focused our investigation on Bunker 73 and later learned that US troops conducted demolition activity at the site in later learned that US troops conducted demolition activity at the site in March 1991. The May 1996 UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) inspection of Bunker 73 provided evidence that confirmed our belief that chemical munitions were present in the Bunker when it was destroyed. We have published our findings as well as the modeling of the downwind hazard that could have resulted from the demolition of chemical munitions in Bunker 73. These results as well as the results of the modeling at Muhammadiyat and Al Muthanna are available on the Internet. Our modeling work of the chemical release at the Khamisiyah pit area is incomplete. As you know, the modeling of this particular site poses far more difficult challenges than the modeling of the other sites. For example, unlike in the modeling of the 4 March Bunker 73 demolition, in the Pit area modeling we do not know the number or the date of the demolition events, how many shells were destroyed, the wind direction, and other critical determinants of the dispersion of chemical agents. Moreover, several of the important inputs changed while we were modeling this effort. I would briefly like to go through each one of the areas of uncertainty: First and most significant, the exact date and number of events are in doubt. We believe that the demolition occurred on 10 March, and there may have been an additional demolition on 12 March. In addition, we know that there were 13 stacks of rockets at the pit area before the destruction activity occurred. However, according to DoD investigators, the number of stacks the soldiers claimed to have destroyed varies from 3 to 9. Second, unlike the 4 March event where we had a video, we have no verifiable ground truth showing the wind patterns for March 10 or 12. Third, unlike the bunker destruction, we have no US testing to indicate the percent of agent released and rate of release for rockets destroyed in the open. For the Bunker 73 demolition, we were able to use the results of earlier US tests of the destruction of artillery shells in bunkers in our modeling efforts. Fourth, in the case of the pit area a larger amount of agent was released into the atmosphere and evaporation was slower. This further complicated the modeling because weather conditions varied over a longer dispersion period. Finally, the pit event is of particular concern because of the greater probability of the risk of exposure of US troops. In the other three releases the remote location of the event or the northerly direction of the wind suggest US troops were not exposed. Because of the broad range of uncertainties and the importance of the results of the modeling of this particular site to the US veterans, the DCI decided that an expert review group needed to be convened. He strongly believes we need to ensure that the technical results of this model are unassailable. The DoD will convene that group. We think this group drawn from the scientific and technical community, will be able to identify the strengths and weaknesses of our efforts and suggest modeling approaches and techniques that will help us develop a better understanding of events at Khamisiyah. We have used the time leading up to this expert review as an opportunity to refine the inputs to our model and to try to decrease some of the uncertainties. We have discussed the lack of weather data with an expert group of weather modelers. They have provided good ideas in obtaining new sources of weather data for this period of time. We are currently trying to obtain all of that data. By working with DoD and researching additional intelligence information, we are attempting to resolve the uncertainties of the date and number of rockets that were destroyed in the pit area. At this point, as we continue our analysis of all intelligence, we are unaware of other incidents involving possible chemical exposure to our troops. We know the DoD is investigating other incidents of reported detections from chemical alarms, and we will provide any intelligence that might be relevant. We also continue to search for and investigate any documents that may be relevant. With respect to the Czech detections, beginning in 1993 we modeled a variety of release scenarios to evaluate potential explanations for these detections but we were unable to arrive at a reasonable explanation for them. We judge it likely that the Czech's detected CW agents, as reported. But, we haven't been able to pinpoint the source. We are alert to additional information that would help us develop an explanation. Declassification As you know, all of the documents we have identified and reviewed--classified and unclassified--have been made available to you. With respect to the decisions to declassify additional documents, we believe that we have made available to the public all of the information relevant to the Gulf War illnesses issue. I would like to summarize where we are today. In 1995, the DoD established a web site on the Internet, called GULFLINK, that was designed to make information on Gulf War Illnesses available to the public. One element of GULFLINK was devoted to the results of DoD declassification efforts, which included 1,400 documents that people could access. The original DoD postings raised some security concerns, and they were temporarily withdrawn in February. We convened a Community group to conduct a detailed assessment of the contents. All but 369 were cleared by CIA for reposting by the end of April. on 31 October, all remaining documents were reposted on GULFLINK. In addition, CIA documents that two former Agency employees have claimed contain evidence that chemical weapons were used during the Gulf War have been released on the Internet. As you know, these documents were made available to you and all of the information had been released previously as part of our overall declassification effort. Even so, we decided to release the individual documents; we have held nothing back.
I would like to close by emphasizing that the Director of Central Intelligence has underscored his commitment to the American public to leave no stone unturned.
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