But Mikey...you continue to ignore the fact that the military GOT TO VOTE...but Shrub's brother kept Floridians FROM voting. How can you continue offering your version of history when the election was decided by the Supreme Court and the FACT that citizens were deprived of their vote. "Your side gets to vote. Gore's side doesn't get to vote and you therefore say the military decided the election. DUH!
How about Shrub getting all the hecklers and protest in Europe this week and his lame retort when questioned about his intent in Iraq. He could merely respond ..."He(Saddam) is a dictator that gassed his own people." Geez! How many times do we have to hear this as the reason for his Axis of Evil....especially if we are to condemn a government for gassing it's people...then WE ARE cut out of the same cloth.
"Military Used Nerve Gas in '60s
Fri May 24, 7:51 AM ET
By MATT KELLEY, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Pentagon (news - web sites) admitted for the first time that chemical and biological weapons were tested on Navy ships in the 1960s, and said anyone who was harmed could be eligible for health benefits.
Two kinds of nerve gas and a biological toxin were sprayed on the ships, military officials said Thursday. Four tests in the Pacific from 1964 to 1968 used either the deadly nerve agent sarin, the nerve gas known as VX, or a biological toxin that causes flu-like symptoms, Defense Department statements said.
Sketchy records of the tests and ships' logs do not indicate any of those involved in the tests suffered serious health problems at the time, said Dr. Michael E. Kilpatrick, a Defense Department health official.
"We believe if anything catastrophic happened or if there were large numbers of ill people, it would be in the log," said Kilpatrick, who was involved in reviewing the records. "There's no indication on any of these tests that that had occurred."
The Department of Veterans Affairs (news - web sites) has mailed letters to about 600 veterans who may have taken part in the tests, VA Secretary Anthony Principi said Thursday.
"There's always been a question whether veterans and active-duty service members became ill as a result of that testing," Principi said in an interview with The Associated Press. "It's been controversial, so we were sending out letters to veterans to ask them to take a physical and to see if they are entitled to any benefits."
The Pentagon released details about six tests from a 1960s program to evaluate chemical and biological weapons and defenses against them. The Defense Department agreed two years ago to begin releasing details about the tests and contacting participants after pressure from Rep. Mike Thompson (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif., and veterans involved in the tests.
"I'm somewhat alarmed by it," Thompson said. "It seems to me enough time has passed that someone over there should have known who was involved and what was going on."
The tests also used chemicals and bacteria meant to simulate weapons, as well as fluorescent or radioactive chemicals used as tracers, the Defense Department said. One type of bacteria used to simulate germ weapons was later found to cause infections, and a separate test where that germ was sprayed on San Francisco is believed to have caused an infection that killed a man.
The tests were among 113 conducted as part of a project called SHAD, or Shipboard Hazard and Defense. The Pentagon has acknowledged using chemical and biological simulants before, but has not admitted using the actual weapons agents themselves.
Sarin, the deadly nerve gas used by a cult to kill a dozen people in a Tokyo subway in 1995, was used in a 1964 test off the Hawaiian coast. Both sarin and a chemical simulant were also sprayed onto the USS George Eastman and injected into the ship's ventilation system, the Pentagon statement said. |
