Senator KERRY. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. First of all, I want to apologize to you. I had wanted to be here earlier, but unfortunately, the way the Senate works, as you well know, sometimes that's impossible. But I wanted to come here now to thank you for your tremendous leadership on this. I have really been impressed, as a veteran, particularly given my long involvement in the effort to get an Agent Orange presumption and a bill through here finally, I'm particularly sensitized to the stonewalling and reactions people will put in the path of those who put on the uniform.

I was quite surprised to find it and I am personally extraordinarily gratified and impressed by your pursuit of this. You've been passionate on the floor, you've been dogged in the Committee and in private, and a lot of veterans around the country I think are deeply indebted to you for your concern that regrettably has not been as forthcoming as it should have been given the lessons we've learned from other entities that are responsible for behavior toward those who put on the uniform in this country.

There always ought to be a presumption, I believe, and that's something we argued about very bard on the Agent Orange issue, a presumption in favor of the veteran.

You shouldn't have to beat down the doors to get people to level with you and explain to you what may or may not be factual. You have a done a brilliant job of forcing some information out on this that lends a much clearer view about what the possibilities are and what may or may not have happened. So I want to thank you.

I also want to thank those who have suffered because of this exposure, whatever it may be, yet to be fully explained, but I really want to thank them for their pursuit of this and for their willingness to endure.

I always thought that after we won the Agent Orange victory, we had learned a lesson and there would not have to be another generation coming along and enduring. So I'm here expressing personal anger and frustration with the fact that it's been a real tug of war to get at this. I cannot underscore enough my own personal admiration and respect for your efforts to try to get at it, and I think a lot of veterans just feel gratified that this Committee is doing it, and I support you in those efforts.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Senator Kerry. Those words mean something special to me, coming from you, given your history ears ago as a Vietnam War veteran and since that time.

I think we've made some important progress with this work, with our help and the help of others, to get to the bottom of what has happened here and why we have so many sick veterans and increasingly so many sick veteran family members.

Spouses whose reproductive cycle is not working properly or suffering hair loss, a lot of the symptoms that the veterans themselves are experiencing and now increasingly their children. This was an unanticipated finding by us, as we got more deeply into this, but the numbers are growing in this area, and we're now pursuing that aspect of it.

But the question of exposure to chemical agents and to biological agents in this war zone and the implications for veterans and also t of active-duty personnel, there are a lot of active-duty personnel who are afraid now to come forward because there's a downsizing going on and they don't want to be invited to leave because they've been identified as having a medical problem.

Many of the veterans who were already out of the service tell us that if you don't get any real help out of the VA or in terms of a disability rating, and you're too sick to work, you're absolutely uninsurable, the insurance companies don't want to see you because you need the help and you need the coverage.

So there's a diabolical end-game situation facing more and more Desert Storm veterans. And when you think back to the parades, the deserved parades at the time as the war was ending and people were coming back, they don't mean much now if a veteran is sick or his family members are sick, and they need a response, they need a proper diagnosis, and they need proper care.

Even today with respect to the family members, we were able to get from the Defense Department this very day, coincidentally, a statement to all Gulf War veterans, signed by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the Defense Secretary indicating that they are now being urged to come forward, and they will be given help. That is a constructive statement. Now we've got to see that statement fully implemented, and there are questions as to how it affects Reservists and others.

I've also made the pledge today , just for your own information, that if we don't get the response that is needed here, I'm quite prepared to conduct hearings where we have veterans come in endless numbers. I hate to go through the process of asking people to make that effort, but if it's needed in order to really force this issue to a proper conclusion, we'll do that, and we'll have hearings that go on as long as they need to go on, until the powers that be understand that this is not going to be an issue that's swept under the rug. We're not going to have a 20-year hiatus as we had with Agent Orange. We've had a lot of veterans from Desert Storm already die, who went over in perfect health.

Senator KERRY. Well, it's very curious, I must say. I mentioned a moment ago to the staff that I was in Kuwait about 2 days after the liberation as part of the observer group from the Senate, and apart from biological or chemical, I found that the acridity of the air and the thickness of the air just from the oil fires. I remember turning to one of the soldiers there in Kuwait and asking him whether the air he was breathing bothered him, and how he felt about being outdoors. In fact, several people there who were from Reserve units out of Massachusetts mentioned to me that they were ver concerned about breathing the air.

I’ve got to tell you, for the 24 hours or whatever that I was there, I found a significant impact and discomfort from the air I was breathing, not unlike Bangkok where you can go out and you can't run. In 15 minutes, you feel your lungs searing.

I certainly felt the effect of those fires and within miles around, when it rained buildings were covered, cars were covered. I mean, you had, as far away as in Rihad, you had buildings that turned black by virtue of the rain. You had black rain. So that means you have particles in the air, and if you have particles in the air, you are clearly breathing those particles. I don't know what the air quality was. I don't even know if we measured that air quality, but I remember distinctly feeling it and having concern expressed to me by people.

Now I'm told that that has not yet showed up or there isn't some indication of that, but I would personally be surprised if, for those who were there for some period of time, there isn't some kind of impact or potential for it.

Anyway, I think you're doing very important work here. I apologize to those who wish more of us were here and able to stay, but the Senate doesn't always allow that.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much again, Senator Kerry.

Let me introduce our first witness this afternoon, Dr. Mitchell Wallerstein, who is the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Counterproliferation Policy, Department of Defense, and we're pleased to have you.

You've come in the trail of an earlier discussion this morning, as you know. Why don't you proceed and give us your statement at this point, and then we'll go from there.

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