Riegle Report

By The United States Senate

The Riegle Report concerns the 'Gulf War Syndrome' spectrum of illnesses which affected veterans of the Gulf wars. It looks at what chemical and biological weapons were exported to Iraq and whether such weapons may have been used either on or by American troops.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Good Press
• Release date: Dec 8, 2020
• ISBN: 4064066404673

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The United States Senate

Riegle Report

Published by Good Press, 2022

[e-mail]

EAN 4064066404673

Table of Contents

Congressional Record (Senate) February 9, 1994

Letter to the Secretary of the Department of Veteran Affairs

Letter to the Secretary of the Department of Defense

Letter to the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services

Listing of Biological Materials Exported to Iraq

Note: This document is the unofficial version of the Congressional Record. The printed Congressional Record produced by the Government Printing Office is the only official version.

The Riegle report on-line at gulfweb.org

Congressional Record (Senate) February 9, 1994

Table of Contents

MR. RIEGLE. I thank the Chair, and I thank my colleague from Nebraska and my colleague from Hawaii.

Mr. President, I am here today with some very important information with respect to what may be affecting the health of our gulf war veterans, many of whom have come home with terribly disabling medical problems. I have been meeting with them, both here in Washington, and back in my home State of Michigan. It is hard to describe fully the magnitude of this problem without addressing individual cases and actually having them give first-person accounts as to both what happened to them when they were over in the war zone and also what has happened to them since they have returned.

Back on September 9, here on the Senate floor, I released a lengthy report which suggested that the illnesses which have come to be called gulf war syndrome - a collection of illnesses, serious illnesses, that our veterans are experiencing - could have resulted from exposure to chemical and biological warfare agents in the war zone, either through direct exposure from some kind of weapon, or shellfire; or from the downwind exposure as we bombed these biological and chemical weapons facilities - throwing hazardous debris up into the air which was then carried down over our troops.

There is also a question as to whether some of the medicines that we gave our troops to protect them against exposures of this kind may also have had the result of making some of them sick.

In any event, the symptoms associated with what is called gulf war syndrome are very debilitating and, in fact, have already killed too many of our returning veterans. The symptoms include muscle and joint pain, serious memory loss,