Late Baathist-era flag of the Republic of Iraq, 1991-2004.
During and immediately after the first Gulf War, more than 200,000 of 700,000 U.S. troops sent to Iraq and Kuwait in January 1991 were exposed to nerve gas and other chemical agents. Though aware of this, the Department of Defense and CIA launched a campaign of lies and concocted a cover-up that continues today.
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During January and February 1991, when the U.S. bombed Iraq’s weapons plants and storage sites, poisonous plumes floated across the desert to thousands of U.S. troops based on the Saudi border. Sirens wailed daily, but officers in charge announced that the chemical-detection alarms were faulty.
The U.S. government and military continues to obscure or misrepresent the scale of the lasting damage for veterans to this day. To say nothing of the very similar mishandling and coverup in the second Iraq War of legacy chemical weapons disposal.
