- The United States held open-air biological and chemical
weapons tests in at least four states - Alaska, Hawaii, Maryland and Florida
- during the 1960s in an effort to develop defenses against such weapons,
according to Pentagon (news - web sites) documents.
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- A series of tests in Alaska from 1965-67 used artillery
shells and bombs filled with the nerve agents sarin and VX, the records
show.
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- The Defense Department planned to release summaries of
28 chemical and biological weapons tests at a House Veterans Affairs Committee
hearing Wednesday. The Associated Press obtained the summaries Tuesday.
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- The documents did not say whether any civilians had been
exposed to the poisons. Military personnel exposed to weapons agents would
have worn protective gear, the Pentagon says.
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- The Pentagon previously acknowledged that it had conducted
biological and chemical tests, but this was the first time it disclosed
that some tests were conducted over land and not out at sea.
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- The tests were part of Project 112, a military program
in the 1960s and 1970s to test chemical and biological weapons and defenses
against them. Parts of the testing program done on Navy ships were called
Project SHAD, or Shipboard Hazard and Defense.
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- The tests were directed from the Deseret Test Center,
part of a biological and chemical weapons complex in the Utah desert.
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- Some of those involved in the tests say they now suffer
health problems linked to their exposure to dangerous chemicals and germs.
They are pressing the Veterans Affairs Department to compensate them and
the Defense Department to release more information about the tests.
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- In response to pressure from veterans and Congress, the
Pentagon began releasing details of the tests last year. Earlier this year,
the Defense Department acknowledged for the first time that some of the
1960s tests used real chemical and biological weapons, not just benign
stand-ins.
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- "The Cold War era experiments of Project SHAD, which
we are now learning used live toxins and chemical poisons on American servicemen
on American soil, must be aggressively investigated in as open and transparent
a manner as possible," said the House Veterans Affairs Committee chairman,
Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J. "Our focus must be on quickly identifying
those veterans who were involved, assessing whether they suffered any negative
health consequences and, if warranted, providing them with adequate health
care and compensation for their service."
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- The Defense Department has identified nearly 3,000 soldiers
involved in tests disclosed earlier, but the VA has sent letters to fewer
than half of them. VA and Pentagon officials acknowledged at a July hearing
that finding the soldiers has been difficult.
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- The tests described in the latest Pentagon documents
include:
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- _ Devil Hole I, designed to test how sarin gas would
disperse after being released in artillery shells and rockets in aspen
and spruce forests. The tests occurred in the summer of 1965 at the Gerstle
River test site near Fort Greeley, Alaska, the documents said. Sarin is
a powerful nerve gas that causes a choking, thrashing death. It killed
12 people in a Tokyo subway attack in 1995 and the Bush administration
says it is part of Iraq's chemical arsenal.
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- _ Devil Hole II, which tested how the nerve agent VX
behaved when dispersed with artillery shells. The test at the Gerstle River
site in Alaska also included mannequins in military uniforms and military
trucks. VX is one of the deadliest nerve agents known and is persistent
in the environment because it is a sticky liquid that evaporates slowly.
Iraq has acknowledged making tons of VX.
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- _ Big Tom, a 1965 test that included spraying bacteria
over the Hawaiian island of Oahu to simulate a biological attack on an
island compound, and to develop tactics for such an attack. The test used
Bacillus globigii, a bacterium believed at the time to be harmless. Researchers
later discovered the bacteria could cause infections in people with weakened
immune systems.
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- Descriptions of some of the tests: http://deploymentlink.osd.mil/current_issues/shad/shad_intro.shtml
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