tissues), difficulty concentrating, forgetfulness, shortness of breath/chest pain and irritability. Early critics, such as Fumento, who labelled the Gulf War Syndrome a "phantom illness," said "the symptom list reads like the index of a medical self help book" (28). The difficulty with Fumento's explanation was that Philips reported in 1997 that "Gulf war veterans were three times more likely than other service vets to have health complaints" (56). The Department of Veterans Affairs opened a Persian Gulf Health Registry. By 1995, 50,000 veterans were registered, and by 1997 80,000 (Philips 56). Another 1,000 British veterans and 150 Canadian veterans filed Gulf War related claims.
To its credit, the American government, Department of Veterans Affairs, faced with claims of this magnitude forswore litigation and agreed to treat the veterans and their families involved without contesting causation. On the other hand before 1996, the national security establishment with the support of the VA and government health laboratories insisted that there was no proven connection between any known environmental risks during the period of the Gulf War and the veterans' symptoms. The Pentagon was forced to address the issue when Rep. Donald W. Riegle, Jr. (D-Mich), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, began to hold hearings on the subject in October 1992. Riegle hired as the Committee's lead investigator a retired Secret Service officer, James J. Tuite, III, who succeeded in rattling a few cages at the Pentagon.
Secretary of Defense William Perry sent a letter to the Committee on May 4, 1994 in which he said, "There is no classified information that would indicate any exposures or detections of chemical or biological weapons agents" (Tuite 2). DOD Undersecretary Edwin Dorn told the Committee that same month that all chemical agents were found a great distance away from the Kuwait theater of operations. Then, o...