[Peace-discuss] sniper

[C. G. Estabrook]

DAVID WOOD, NEWHOUSE NEWS SERVICE - The alleged Washington sniper, John
Allen Muhammad, may have been exposed to chemical weapons that have been
linked to Gulf War Syndrome, an illness which experts said can result in
unexplained bouts of intense violence. Muhammad served with the Army's
84th Engineer Company during the Persian Gulf War, military officers said.
That unit, attached to the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment, helped inspect,
catalog and destroy extensive stockpiles of Iraqi chemical weapons at a
depot near Khamisiyah, Iraq, in March 1991 following the cease-fire March
3, Pentagon records show.

According to Defense Department and CIA documents, the 84th Engineers
worked handled the Iraqi chemical weapons stored in bunkers at the Tall al
Lahm Storage Depot South and Tall al Lahm Ammo Storage Facility near
Khamisiyah. The 84th Engineers also helped demolish Iraqi rockets filled
with the deadly nerve agent Sarin during March 10-13, 1991, Pentagon
documents show. The process of blowing up the rockets may have vaporized
dangerous amounts of the nerve agent, Pentagon investigators later
concluded. According to a final Pentagon report on the issue, "U.S. troops
may have been exposed to chemical agents that are a suspected cause of
Gulf War Syndrome." . . .

"Once it came out that he had a military background, I said this must be a
Gulf War veteran," said Dr. William E. Baumzweiger, a Los Angeles
neurologist and psychiatrist who specializes in treating Gulf War Syndrome
patients. "There is no doubt that a small but significant number of Gulf
War veterans become homicidal" because of Gulf War Syndrome, said
Baumzweiger, until recently a staff psychiatrist and neurologist at
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

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  C. G. Estabrook
  University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign [MC-190]
  109 Observatory, 901 South Mathews Avenue, Urbana IL 61801 USA
  office: 217.244.4105 mobile: 217.369.5471 home: 217.359.9466   
  <www.carlforcongress.org>
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