Riegle Report

Last updated February 18, 2019

The Riegle Report, officially titled "U.S. Chemical and Biological Warfare-Related Dual Use Exports to Iraq and their Possible Impact on the Health Consequences of the Gulf War", summarized testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs with Respect to Export Administration. The May 25, 1994, report by Committee Chairman Riegle and ranking minority member Alfonse M. D'Amato concludes that there is significant evidence that "coalition forces were exposed to mixed chemical agents as a result of coalition bombings of Iraqi nuclear, chemical, and biological facilities and that the fallout from these bombings may be contributing to the health problems currently being suffered by Gulf War veterans" following the Gulf War (1990–1991). The report also implicates the U.S. Department of Commerce as well as the American Type Culture Collection in the shipment of biological research samples to Iraq:

The United States Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs has jurisdiction over matters related to banks and banking, price controls, deposit insurance, export promotion and controls, federal monetary policy, financial aid to commerce and industry, issuance of redemption of notes, currency and coinage, public and private housing, urban development, mass transit and government contracts.

Alfonse Marcello D'Amato is an American lawyer and former New York politician. A Republican, he served as United States Senator from New York from 1981 to 1999. He subsequently founded a lobbying firm, Park Strategies.

The Gulf War, codenamed Operation Desert Shield for operations leading to the buildup of troops and defense of Saudi Arabia and Operation Desert Storm in its combat phase, was a war waged by coalition forces from 35 nations led by the United States against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait arising from oil pricing and production disputes. The war is also known under other names, such as the Persian Gulf War, First Gulf War, Gulf War I, Kuwait War, First Iraq War or Iraq War, before the term "Iraq War" became identified instead with the 2003 Iraq War.

"Records available from the supplier for the period from 1985 until the present show that during this time, pathogenic, toxigenic, and other biological research materials were exported to Iraq pursuant to application and licensing by the U.S. Department of Commerce. Records prior to 1985 were not available, according to the supplier. These exported biological materials were not attenuated or weakened and were capable of reproduction."

Senator Riegle also called in the Congressional Record for the U.S. Department of Defense to continue to investigate the potential causes of Gulf War syndrome and to provide needed care to afflicted Gulf War veterans and their families:

<i>Congressional Record</i> official record of the proceedings and debates of the United States Congress

The Congressional Record is the official record of the proceedings and debates of the United States Congress, published by the United States Government Publishing Office and issued when Congress is in session. Indexes are issued approximately every two weeks. At the end of a session of Congress, the daily editions are compiled in bound volumes constituting the permanent edition. Chapter 9 of Title 44 of the United States Code authorizes publication of the Congressional Record.

The Department of Defense is an executive branch department of the federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government concerned directly with national security and the United States Armed Forces. The department is the largest employer in the world, with nearly 1.3 million active duty servicemen and women as of 2016. Adding to its employees are over 826,000 National Guardsmen and Reservists from the four services, and over 732,000 civilians bringing the total to over 2.8 million employees. Headquartered at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C., the DoD's stated mission is to provide "the military forces needed to deter war and ensure our nation's security".

Gulf War syndrome, officially known as Gulf War illnesses and chronic multisymptom illness, is a chronic and multisymptomatic disorder affecting returning military veterans and civilian workers of the Persian Gulf War of 1990 and 1991. A wide range of acute and chronic symptoms have been linked to it, including fatigue, muscle pain, cognitive problems, rashes and diarrhea. Approximately 250,000 of the 697,000 U.S. veterans who served in the 1991 Gulf War are afflicted with enduring chronic multi-symptom illness, a condition with serious consequences. From 1995 to 2005, the health of combat veterans worsened in comparison with nondeployed veterans, with the onset of more new chronic diseases, functional impairment, repeated clinic visits and hospitalizations, chronic fatigue syndrome-like illness, posttraumatic stress disorder, and greater persistence of adverse health incidents. According to a report by the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan may also suffer from Gulf War illness.

"Frankly, the Defense Department does not have too much interest in [a retired Army colonel who is sick and unemployed]. They are looking ahead to other things. They are not looking back at the large number of sick veterans who are out there.

"But it does not take a Ph.D., knowing Saddam Hussein's record, knowing he had the production facilities, knowing that we went in and bombed some of those production facilities, and knowing that the things that we sent him helped him produce biological weapons, to understand that such exposures may—I underline the word may—be causing the problems of a lot of our sick veterans that otherwise are defying explanation."

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Depleted uranium is uranium with a lower content of the fissile isotope U-235 than natural uranium. Natural uranium contains about 0.72% U-235, while the DU used by the U.S. Department of Defense contains 0.3% U-235 or less. Uses of DU take advantage of its very high density of 19.1 g/cm³. The less radioactive and non-fissile uranium-238 constitutes the main component of depleted uranium.

Chemical warfare (CW) involves using the toxic properties of chemical substances as weapons. This type of warfare is distinct from nuclear warfare and biological warfare, which together make up NBC, the military acronym for nuclear, biological, and chemical, all of which are considered "weapons of mass destruction" (WMDs). None of these fall under the term conventional weapons which are primarily effective due to their destructive potential. In theory, with proper protective equipment, training, and decontamination measures, the primary effects of chemical weapons can be overcome. In practice, they continue to cause much suffering, as most victims are defenceless civilians. Many nations possess vast stockpiles of weaponized agents in preparation for wartime use. The threat and the perceived threat have become strategic tools in planning both measures and counter-measures.

A weapon of mass destruction (WMD) is a nuclear, radiological, chemical, biological, or any other weapon that can kill and bring significant harm to a large number of humans or cause great damage to human-made structures, natural structures, or the biosphere. The scope and usage of the term has evolved and been disputed, often signifying more politically than technically. Originally coined in reference to aerial bombing with chemical explosives during World War II, it has later come to refer to large-scale weaponry of other technologies, such as chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear.

Iraq actively researched and later employed weapons of mass destruction from 1962 to 1991, when it destroyed its chemical weapons stockpile and halted its biological and nuclear weapon programs. The fifth president of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, was internationally condemned for his use of chemical weapons during the 1980s campaign against Iranian and Kurdish civilians during and after the Iran–Iraq War. In the 1980s, Saddam pursued an extensive biological weapons program and a nuclear weapons program, though no nuclear bomb was built. After the Persian Gulf War (1990-1991), the United Nations located and destroyed large quantities of Iraqi chemical weapons and related equipment and materials, and Iraq ceased both its chemical, biological and nuclear programs.

Donald Wayne Riegle Jr. is an American politician, author and businessman from Michigan, who served for five terms as a Representative and for three terms as a Senator in the U.S. Congress.

Many nations continue to research and/or stockpile chemical weapon agents despite numerous efforts to reduce or eliminate them. Most states have joined the Chemical Weapons Convention, which required the destruction of all chemical weapons by 2012. Twelve nations have declared chemical weapons production facilities and six nations have declared stockpiles of chemical weapons. All of the declared production facilities have been destroyed or converted to civilian use after the treaty went into force. According to the United States government, at least 17 nations currently have active chemical weapons programs.

The Iraqi Armed Forces are the military forces of the Government of Iraq. They consist of the Iraqi Army, the Iraqi Air Force, and the Iraqi Navy.

American support for Ba'athist Iraq during the Iran–Iraq War, in which it fought against post-revolutionary Iran, included several billion dollars' worth of economic aid, the sale of dual-use technology, non-U.S. origin weaponry, military intelligence, and special operations training. However, the U.S. did not directly supply arms to Iraq. Of particular interest for contemporary Iran–United States relations are the repeated accusations that the U.S. government actively encouraged Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to invade Iran, supported by a considerable amount of circumstantial evidence, but the U.S. government officially denies that any such collusion occurred, and no conclusive proof of it has been found.

In violation of the Geneva Protocol of 1925, the Iraqi Army initiated two failed and one successful (1978–1991) offensive chemical weapons (CW) programs. President Saddam Hussein (1937–2006) pursued the most extensive chemical program during the Iran–Iraq War (1980–1988), when he waged chemical warfare against his foe. He also used chemicals in 1988 in the Al-Anfal Campaign against his civilian Kurdish population and during a popular uprising in the south in 1991.

Khamisiyah is an area in southern Iraq located approximately 350 km south east of Baghdad, 200 km north-west of Kuwait City and 270 km north of Al Qaysumah. Khamisiyah is under the administration of the province of Dhi Qar. The area contains a few small towns, including Khamisiyah and Sahalat, with an estimated population of 8,500. It is probably most noted for the Khamisiyah Ammunition Storage Facility built and used during the regime of Saddam Hussein.

This article deals with activities of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, specifically dealing with arms control, weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and weapons proliferation. It attempts to look at the process of tasking and analyzing, rather than the problem itself, other than whether the CIA's efforts match its legal mandate or assists in treaty compliance. In some cases, the details of a country's programs are introduced because they present a problem in analysis. For example, if Country X's policymakers truly believe in certain history that may not actually be factual, an analyst trying to understand Country X's policymakers needs to be able to understand their approach to an issue.

French support for Iraq during the Iran–Iraq war was an important element to strengthen Iraq for the Iran–Iraq War. Starting in roughly 1975, leading up to the Iran–Iraq War, as well as the war itself, the greatest amount of military equipment came to Iraq from the Soviet Union, but France was probably second, and generally provided higher-technology equipment than the Soviets.

Project 112 was a biological and chemical weapon experimentation project conducted by the United States Department of Defense from 1962 to 1973.

Singapore, a major commercial hub with loose export controls on weapons, both served as a transshipment point for weapons destined for Iraq, as well as providing chemical warfare precursors and being a site for manufacture, under license, of foreign-designed weapons.

Saddam Hussein (1937–2006) initiated an extensive biological weapons (BW) program in Iraq in the early 1980s, in violation of the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) of 1972. Details of the BW program—along with a chemical weapons program—surfaced only in the wake of the Gulf War (1990–91) following investigations conducted by the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) which had been charged with the post-war disarmament of Saddam's Iraq. By the end of the war, program scientists had investigated the BW potential of five bacterial strains, one fungal strain, five types of virus, and four toxins. Of these, three—anthrax, botulinum and aflatoxin—had proceeded to weaponization for deployment. Because of the UN disarmament program that followed the war, more is known today about the once-secret bioweapons program in Iraq than that of any other nation.

The Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control is a private non-profit, non-partisan organization, which, according to its website, "carries out research and public education designed to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, chemical/biological weapons and long-range missiles. It is a private, non-profit, non-partisan foundation that operates in Washington, D.C. under the auspices of the University of Wisconsin."

Czechoslovakia sent a force of 200 to take part in Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm as part of the Coalition of the Gulf War. This operation was the sole military operation carried out by Czechoslovakia during the democratic period prior to its breakup in 1993. It was also the first armed conflict Czechoslovak troops took part in since World War II. The unit deployed to Saudi Arabia specialized in chemical defense and decontamination, a major concern in the Gulf War due to Saddam Hussein's use of mustard and nerve agents in the Iran–Iraq War. Czechoslovak forces were equipped with UAZ-469 all terrain vehicles equipped with chemical detection gear, Tatra T-815 transporters, and a variety of trucks designed for decontamination. The two platoons were headed by Colonel Ján Való. In the wake of the Gulf War, investigations were carried out by the Czech and Slovak government into claims of Gulf War Syndrome amongst returned veterans. Czechoslovak forces recorded the release of toxins such as sarin in Iraqi territory, that were attributed to as the causes of the syndrome.

Riegle is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:

Riegle Report

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